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THE

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ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

OF

LANGUAGE.

"Without speech knowledge would have but little value,
and without knowledge si)eech would have but little weight.
The union of these in their highest perfection is the great
ornament of man, and the strong characteristic that dis-
tinguishes the human from the animal species."— Thomas
Sheridan, M.A.

PHILADELrniA :
AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION,

NO. 146 CHESTNUT STREET.

LONDON: *

RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY.

Note. — The American Siinday-schonl Union have made an
arrangement with the London Religious Tract Society, to pub-
lish, concnrrently with them, such of their valuable works as
are best suited to our circulation. In making the selection,
reference will be had to the general utility of the volumes, and
their sound moral tendency. They will occupy a distinct place
on our catalogue, and will constitute a valuable addition to our
Btock of books for family and general reading.

As they will be, substantially, reprints of the London edition,
the credit of their general character will belong to our English
brethren and not to us ; and we may add, that the republica-
tion of them, under our joint imprint, involves us in no respon-
sibility beyond that of a judicious selection. We cheerfully
avail ourselves of this arrangement for giving wider influence
and value to the labours of a sister institution so catholic in
its character and so efficient in its operations as the London
JReligious Ti-act Society.

4®= The present volume is issued under the above arrange-
ment.

PEEFACE.

This volume is intended to present an impai'tial
view of the origin of language, and to contain
an epitome of the facts connected with its
historical progress, so far as that progress
might seem to bear upon the more import-
ant question of its origin. It has not been
attempted to write a general history of lan-
guage, as this would have been incompatible
with the limits assigned to this treatise, and
would not have added much to the illustra-
tion of the main object of the author, which
has been to prove, that language was not in-
vented by men, but bestowed at first upon
them by the Author of their being. An
attempt has been made to exhibit the complete
harmony of this fact with the statements of the
Bible, and thus to present another argument
for the authentic and inspired character of
that book, which professes to be the exclusive
written revelation of the Divine will.

lU

ly PREFACE.

There is no separate work on this subject, in
our language, constructed so as to aim sys-
tematically at the elucidation of this great and
interesting truth. The learned are familiar
with many treatises on language, some of which
are unfavourable to the views here maintained;
while the conclusions of others, so far as they are
carried out, point only incidentally to the same
result as this essay. An attempt has here been
made to treat the subject on Christian principles,
to compress all that is essential to its right un-
derstanding into a narrow space ; and so to
simplify the facts and reasonings as to render
them intelligible to the young, and to those
classes of society who have no learned leisure
to employ in extensive reading on such a
theme. If the book shall be found to render
instruction and pleasure to inquiring minds,
and tend in any case to produce or strengthen
belief in the obligations of the world to the
sacred Scriptures, the author will be thankful,
and endeavour to present the glory resulting
from such events at the feet of Him to whom
all praise belongs.

London, July, 1848.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

The dignity of man as indicated by tlie possession of speech —
This endowment is peculiar to the human family, and ia
not to be confounded with the notes of birds, or cries of
beasts — Language indispensable to us in our present
state — The wisdom and beneficence displayed in the con-
struction of sound — The comprehensiveness of language —
The rapidity with which words may be uttered — Instances
of the wonderful effects of speech — Considerations re-
specting its honourable character and extensive utility- • • 9

CHAPTER II.

Early attention bestowed on the origin of language — The
theory of one existing parent language — Diversity of opi-
nion as to the one — The revival of learning in Europe —
Its influence on this question — The comparative study of
languages a new branch of scholarship — Labourers in
this department — Objects of their study— Its supposed
bearing on Holy Scripture — Present state of the question —
The design of this inquhy 31

CHAPTER IIL

Definition of language — Metaphorical application of the
term — Natural signs — Symbolical representations — Sys-
tematic signs — The supposed connection between words
and ideas — Examples supplied by the Hebrew and Eng-

5

6 CONTENTS.

lish languages — Radical expressive Bounds and letters —
The object of language — The origin of language — Ques-
tion stated — Theory of its invention — Advocates of this
hypothesis — Its absurdities — The weight due to names as
authorities on the subject — Advantages possessed by mo-
dern over former writers on language 44

CHAPTER IV.

Objections to the theory that language is a human inven-
tion— No period can be assigned to its invention — If in-
vented, it is more than probable that there would be
some record of it — The strong improbability of men in-
venting it — The relative perfection of the most ancient
languages — Their independence in structure of the ad-
vances of civilization — The physical impossibility of in-
venting speech — Language indispensable to some of the
ends of man's creation — Physical construction of the or-
gans of speech — Harmony of Divine wisdom and benevo-
lence in the entire creation — The savage state is not the
natural condition of mankind — Causes which have pro-
moted or retarded social improvement 62

CHAPTER V.

Continuation of objections to the invention of language —
The theory is opposed to the statements of the sacred
writings — Authority and value of the Pentateuch, or five
books of Moses — Substance of its statements on this sub-
ject— Notices of man when created — In his abode, employ-
ment, social relation, and religious character — Inference
as to the possession of speech — Scriptural proof of the
advanced civilization of the early patriarchs — Their ex-
istence as communities required the use of language —
Strength of this argument — Rapid improvement of man-
kind— Conclusions deduced from It 82

CONTENTS. 7

CHAPTER VI.

The theory of physical spontaneous development held hy
some advocates of invented language — Statements and
estimate of this philosophy — No actual case ilhistrative of
the theory — Impassable gulf between man and the infe-
rior creatures — General results arrived at in the argu-
ment— Steps by which it has been reached — Language is
DiviXE IX ITS ORIGIN — Explanations — Character of the pri-
mitive language — Review of the several arguments for
this theory — Consistency of the conclusion with the rea-
sons and facts of the case —Its harmony with revelation • 102

CHAPTER VII.

One common language in the early patriarchal times — Ad-
vantages which would have resulted from its perpetua-
tion— Evils and benefits of a variety of existing lan-
guages— Objection to the Divine origin of language arising
out of the present diversity, stated and met — The unity
of the human race — Declared in the Old Testament, and
recognised in the New — Illustrated by modern physiologi-
cal researches — The unity of language hence inferred —
Verbal affinities and grammatical resemblances in all
tongues — Classification of languages — Family groups —
Indo-Germanic — Semitic — Malayian — African — American
— Inferences from the ascertained present state of lan-
guage 115

CHAPTER VIII.

Additional historical confirmations of the sacred Scriptures —
The state of society and language after the deluge — Con-
fusion of tongues at Babel — The period of its occurrence —
Scripture statement of the miraculous event — Scene of
the division — Evidence for fixing it in the vicinity of Bar
bylon — ^Design of the builders — Nature of the confusion —

8 CONTENTS.

No other event in history accounts for all the existing
diversities and conformities in language — This does fully —
Harmony in the facts and the testimony — Confirmation by
heathen opinion 149

CHAPTER IX.

State of society immediately after the Dispersion — The ori-
gin of nations — Descendants of Shem— of Ham — of Ja-
pheth — Correspondence in the classes of languages to the
triparte division of the human family — Influence of se-
condary causes in augmenting .diversities of tongues — De-
teriorating process of languages — Means of its improve-
ment— The influence of literature on language — Relation
of poetry to prose — Origin of writing by alphabetic charac-
ters— It was not the offspring of hieroglyphical symbols —
Not invented by different nations — Appears to have been
disclosed to Moses in the writing of the law — Gradually
extended to other nations — Notices of the materials em-
ployed in ancient writing — Scarcity of books in the dark
ages — Invention and progress of printing 159

CHAPTER X.

Historical sketch of European languages — The formation of
modern languages — The English language — Its grammati-
cal superiority — Its verbal strength and beauty — Ele-
ments which enter largely into its composition — Histopy
of its progress and completion — Question of a universal
language — Prospects of the extension of the English
tongue — comparative advantages of written and spoken
language — Conclusion 179

THE

OKIGIN AND PROGRESS 0?
LANGUAGE.

CHAPTER I.

The dignity of man as indicated by the possession of speech—
This endowment is peculiar to the human family, and is not
to be confounded with the notes of birds, or cries of beasts
— Language indispensable to us in our present state — ^The
wisdom and beneficence displayed in the construction of
sound— The comprehensiveness of language — The rapidity
with which words may be uttered— Instances of the won-
derful effects of speech — Considerations respecting its
honourable character and extensive utility.

The tongue is the glory of man ; inasmuch
as its wonderful power of embodying living
thought in appropriate and intelligible lan-
guage, for the purpose of communicating it to
others, distinguishes him from the brute crea-
tion. His intellect does not more surely
indicate his ennobled birth as the offspring .of
God, or intimate his exalted destiny as an
immortal being, than does this capacity of
expressing his most abstruse and consecutive
ideas demonstrate his superiority to the various
orders of animated creatures by which he is
surrounded. Communication is obviously held

10 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

Letween one mere animal and another, in rela-
tion to wants "and desires, to attachments and
to aversions, carried on partly by means . of
inarticulate sounds, and partly by motional
signs ; but the faculty of speech — through
which a perfect interchange of thought is ac-
complished, and by which mind is enabled to
commune with mind, in reference to all that
embraces the interests of time and of eternity
— is reserved to man alone. It is the last seal
of dignity impressed by Deity upon his most
favoured earthly creature ; and proves, even
more certainly than does his upright form, the
glance of his eye, or the intelligence of his
coun-tenauce, that he was made in the image of
God.

It diminishes nothina: of the Aveight of these
statements, that we find some few of the fea-
thered tribes capable, after much instruction,
of imitating the human voice, because their
attainments in this respect are very limited and
imperfect, and leave all their attempts at an
immeasurable and unmistakeable distance from
the perfect exercise of articulation. And not
only so ; but there is, we think, according to
the expressed opinion of some anatomists, an
essential imperfection in the organs of utter-
ance of all irrational animals, which forbids the
modulations required by rational speech, though
they are well fitted for the utterance of long or
continued sounds. Once, indeed, there was an
exception to this rule, when the Lord opened
the mouth of the ass on which Balaam rode,
and, by this wondrous instrumentality, saved

f

OF LANGUAGE. 1 1

the infatuated and guilty man from impending
destruction, as " the dumb ass speaking with
man's voice, forbade the madness of the pro-
pliet." This, however, was a miracle, an ex-
tryordinary interposition of the power of God,
who made man's mouth, and wlio, for the
accomplishment of his own glorious purposCvS,
imparted for a season that capacity to a brute,
which otherwise exclusively belonged to man.
Out of this fact, probably, arose the legendary
heathen tales of the ass of Bacchus, tlie horses
of Achilles, and the bull of Europa, all of which
are reported to have spoken. Heathenism —
imwilling to come behind the relioion of the
Bible, in anything which might appear to
accredit its falsehoods — has invented imitations
of the genuine miracles recorded in Scripture,
and has oftentimes, as in this instance, sought
to establish its erroneous doctrines and prac-
tices by fabulous lying wonders. But the
imitation here is palpable, for the fact is un-
questioned and unquestionable, that the case
narrated in the Bible is unique, and thus by its
miraculous character it serves to establish the
constancy of nature to the law under which the
Creator holds it.

From observation, we are justified in con-
cluding, that the most sagacious of the inferior
creatures are incapable of attaching a meaning
to a general term. " Some of them learn to
articulate sounds by imitation, but they under-
stand not the words they use as expressions of
thought, any more than the clever puppets of
Professor Wheatstone, when the}' give us, me-

12 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

cliaiiically, some rudimentary sounds of speech,
like the half-articulate babblings of a little
child. The chattering of a parrot, and the
whistling tunes of a bullfinch, are beautiful
instances of animal imitation ; but the one bird
no more comprehends the abstractions of lan-
guage than the other does the principles of
music." Words descriptive of character are
indiscriminately applied by parrots, but the
ideas they represent are incomprehensible,
except by beings endowed with reason and a
moral faculty. Throughout the whole animal
kingdom there is no proof that a single noise
expresses a thought, an abstraction, or a gene-
ralization, which is a property characterizing
the language of man. To him alone, in this
lower world, belongs the power of classifying
objects, which in some respects resemble, and
in others differ from each other, and of an-
alysing and decompounding the various objects
of thought; and to him is confined the privilege
of describing by distinctive terms and appro-
priate phraseology the things he thus compre-
hends.

In other worlds there may possibly be found
intelligent beings who need no such medium of
communication as language. Thoughts may
be conveyed through their ranks as with
lightning rapidity, Avithout waiting the slower
explanation even of winged words ; and we,
when freed from the imperfections of our pre-
sent state, having laid aside the garments of
mortality, may rise to the enjoyment of equal
freedom of spiritual intercourse. To us, how-

OF LANGUAGE. 13

ever, as intelligent and social creatures, dwell-
ing in tlie house of an eartlily tabernacle, the
endowment of speech is not only an adornment,
but an indispensable appendage of our com-
fortable and useful existence. Without going
the entire length of those philosophers who —
with Plato, Wollaston, Herder, and Lavoisier —
contend that language is the indispensable
instrument of thought, and that reason cannot
be exercised ^vithout it, because men think
through the medium of words — we may, by an
appeal to our consciousness, learn that much of
our thinking is conducted by mental speech.
It is, likewise remarkable, that not only in the
philosophy of the Greeks, but also in the
phraseology of the New Testament, reason and
language are denominated by one and the same
term, logos, a word. It does not, however, ap-
pear that all thought is dependent upon the aid of
language. Abstract terms are necessary for con-
veying an abstract thought to the mind ; while
the names of things or deeds are not necessary
to thought respecting them. We do not, with
Dugald Stewart, for a moment hesitate to ex-
press an opinion on the possibility of God so
forming us, that we might have been capable
of reasoning concerning classes of objects with-
out the use of signs, as He, who made man by
liis wonder-working power, could employ an
infinite variety of methods of teaching him
Avisdom; but we do hold, with that gifted writer,
that man, as now constituted, "is not such a
being."*
* Philosophy of the Hiunan Mind, vol. i. chap. iv. sec. 3.
2

14 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

The gift of speech thus appears to be an
indispensable instrument of accomplishing the
ends of our earthly existence, in reference to
society at large ; and while exalting us to a
high order of privilege, it clearly involves cor-
responding responsibility. Its influence on the
improvement of .our own minds and hearts is of
unspeakable importance, while its bearing on
the advancement of civilization and religion in
the earth is incalculable. It is the great bond
of social life, the channel of intellectual and
Christian intercourse Avith our fellow-men, and
a powerful instrument for good or for evil, as it
is wisely or otherv/ise employed. It vastly
increases the perfection of our individual na-
ture, changing us from solitary beings to
persons fitted for the highest and holiest com-
munion. By its possession we have, as it were,
bestowed upon us a duplicate and multipliabie
existence, inasmuch as we are enabled to
enrich others with our own intellectual stores,
and that, too, without impoverishing ourselves.
Indeed, so far from diminishing our mental
treasures, this circulation, by the aid of speech,
increases their value ; for to this interchange and
transmission of thought, by vocal utterances,
we are greatly indebted for the improvement
of thought itself. It has been gracefully and
truthfully said by one of our poets : —

"Thoughts shut up want air,
And spoil, like bales unopened to the sun ;
Had tiioii;j,lu been all, sweet speech had been denied:
Speech ventilates our intellectual fire,
Speech burnishes our mental magazine,
Brightens for ornament and whets for use."

OF LANGUAGE. 15

Supposing that the human family had not
been endowed with this power of communi-
cating their ideas and sensations to each other,
reason itself, if not otherwise affected by its
absence, would have proved comparatively an
unavailing power, because one great end of its
possession would have been defeated. In the
absence of speech, we should feel ourselves to
be imprisoned, even while we were at large ;
we should be solitary in the midst of our com-
panions and equals; and, to us, the most intel-
lectual assembly would prove a perfect blank.
Indeed, on this supposition, we should soon be
placed amidst the wreck of society; forasmuch
as we believe human beings could not long be
held in amicable relation to each other without
the attractive and binding aid of vocal language,
unless the Creator were to endow us with other
modes of conveying thought and feeling, which
should prove equivalent to, and a substitute
for, the appointed instrumentality of which we
speak. If it should be thought by any reader
that these benefits are stated too strongly, and
that social intercourse is not in reality so
entirely dependent upon speech as we have
represented — inasmuch as the dumb have signs
which to a great extent supply its wants — let it
be remembered that these signs would not have
existed but for speech. They were invented,
not by the dumb, but by persons more favour-
ably situated, being in the possession of the
power of language, by which they were aided
in the construction of signs to compensate, in
some degree, for the absence of speech in others^

1 6 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

The human voice is so constituted, by the
Divine Author of our being, as to be suscept-
ible of articulate modulations in an almost end-
less variety ; and no other conformation of the
mouth than that given to man can admit, so
far as we can perceive, of the perfect articu-
lation of which he is capable. The wisdom
and beneficence of our Heavenly Father are
strikingly displayed in that adjustment of the
powers of speech, by which, ideas being
attached to sounds, and the mind rendered
master of these sounds, we are enabled to
employ them at will for the purpose of obtain-
ing or imparting information. And equally
wonderful is the fact, that the organs of the
voice are so constructed as to be exactly. adapted
to the properties of the atmosphere through
which its sounds are conveyed, while the undu-
lations excited by vocal utterances are carried
to the ear of the listener, whose organs of hear-
ing are fitted to receive with pleasure the
sounds conveyed : we say with pleasure,
because, without such an arrangement, men,
while capable of hearing, would be unwilling to
employ this power. On the supposition that
the sense of hearing were disproportionately
acute, mankind would be reduced to a miser-
able condition: " What whisper would be low
enough but many could overhear it? What
affairs that most require it, could be transacted
with secrecy ? And whither could we retire
from perpetual humming and buzzing ? Every
breath of wind would incommode and disturb
us. We should have no quiet nor sleep in the

I OF LANGUAGE, 17

silentest nights and most solitary places ; and
we must inevitably be struck dead, or deaf,
with the noise of a clap of thunder."*

Another beautiful illustration of the wisdom
and goodness of our Creator is furnished in the
power of the human voice to assist in the
mutual recognition of friends and Acquaint-
ances. Through the visual organs we recog-
nize well-known persons by their countenance,
their form, or their pecuhar gait, when present
with us, even in a crowd. By their hand-
writing our absent friends are recognized, and
rarely are we imposed upon by the imitation of
a hand with which we are familiar. So the
peculiar tones of a voice enable us to recog-
nize a friend in darkness ; and this power has
often proved of signal advantage in the midst
of scenes of confusion and danger. Without
this distinguishing power of the human voice,
many and great disadvantages would be felt.
It Avas possibly in allusion to this beautiful
arrangement that the Saviour said, " My sheep
hear my voice, and follow rae ; but a stranger
will they not follow, for they know not the
voice of strangers."

The mere utterance of sounds would be of
no value in the commerce of social intercourse,
except a definite meaning were attached to
each sound, as in the midst of voices we should
realize the state graphically described by the
apostle Paul : " If I know not the meaning of
the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a

* Bentley's Confutation of Atheism, p. 98.
2*

16 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

barbarian, and be tbat speaketh shall be a
barbarian unto me." The same inspired writer
tells us, that " there are many kinds of voices in
the world, and none of theiu is without signifi-
cation;" for the common intelligence of men,
and their mutual acquaintance with a given
language, enable them to comprehend the senti-
ments announced by a lengthened speech, and
to interpret the meaning of each separate word,
with undoubted precision. Nor is this arrange-
ment limited, as it might have been, to the
utterance, by slow and painful efforts, of Avords
prompted by the ordinary or more pressing
want^ of our nature ; for the power of speech is
so vast and varied, as to be available to the
enunciation of every supposable subject of
human opinion and interest ; while the glance
of the eye, or the general expression of the
countenance, adds emphasis to articulated lan-
guage, and, in certain exigencies of life and
death, conveys emotions which are too over-
whelming for vocal utterance.

The rapidity of speech is so great as usually
to keep pace wdth our mental conceptions and
desires, when these are indulged under the
government of enlightened reason, and to meet
the capability of comprehension on the part of
those who are addressed. A public speaker,
who delivers himself with rapidity, may pro-
nounce from seven thousand to seven thousand
five hundred words in an hour. The medium
number allows of the utterance of a hundred
and twenty words in a minute, or two in every
second. This computation, made by an in-

OF LANGUAGE. 19

genious man and a scholar,* relates to the
English language, and would slightly differ in
reference to other tongues, according to the
comparative increased or diminished facility
vnXh. which they may be spoken. Numerous,
however, as may be the words poured forth in
a limited space of time, the modulations of the
human voice which utters them may be even
more numerous, and often exceed the words
themselves. These may inspire the heart with
terror, and then awaken hope — may electrify
the soul through all its powers, and then sus-
pend its capabilities of action — may bow down
the spirit with overwhelming sorrow, and then
transport it with unutterable joy.

It would be difficult, if not impossible,
to over-estimate the moral influence of this
astonishing faculty, for the use of which we
should be daily grateful to God, " in whom
we live, and move, and have '^ur being." Of all
created power, the power of opinion is the most
influential in its operation on the character and
destiny of men ; and its influence is vastly
greater when it falls on the ear with a graceful
utterance and fervent eloquence, than when it
is simply presented to the eye. The living
voice comes in to the aid of the sentiment it
conveys, which thus acts with augmente"d
efficiency in moulding the faith, and in forming
the character of communities ; while its effects
are equally decisive in the creation of indivi-
dual purposes, and the regulation of personal
conduct. We may affirm, without the fear of
* The late Lord Sheffield.

20 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

successful contradiction, that greater exploits
have been achieved by the tongue than by the
sword, and by the use of language than by the
power of armies. The pages of history furnish
numerous illustrations of the exciting and sub-
duing power of eloquent and wise discourse,
as actually realizing the import of that legend-
ary tale, which poetically represents Orpheus
taming the most ferocious animals, aim making
the forest dance in concert to his Ijre. The
eloquence of Demosthenes roused the Athenians
against Philip; the orations of Cicero saved his
country from threatened calamities ; the earnest
tones of Peter, a solitary hermit, filled Europe
with phrensied emotion, and called forth the
flower of its population to struggle and to
perish in the crusades. In more recent times,
the voice of Luther shook the Vatican, and
emancipated the Protestant part of Europe from
the dominion of Papal Rome. " Life and death
are still in the power of the tongue." At the
utterance of the name of Austerlitz or Marengo
thousands have rushed to a forlorn hope, and
met a premature death on the field of conflict.

Daily experience and observation instruct us
in the power of vocal language to decide the
judgment and to move the afl*ections. It has
been our happiness, occasionally, to listen to
the melody of the human voice, announcing
great commanding truths, till -we have been
alternately melted to pity, and transported to
the mountain tops of joy. Carried away with
the earnest, impassioned utterances of the
speaker, we have hung upon every word, and

OF LANGUAGE. 21

almost mslied that the music of their intona-
tions could flow on for ever. This exquisite
delight is not peculiar to a select few, for it is
evidently shared by multitudes around us.
Witness the deep, delighted anxiety with
which the crowds who, on great occasions, fill
our halls of justice, listen to the eloquent
appeals, " in thoughts that breathe, and words
that burn," which are put forth by gifted
counsel, on either side, when life and death
appear trenibhng in the balance, and wait to be
decided by the power of the tongue. With
what unutterable emotions have speeches been
listened to in the senate of our countrv, when
adorned with the brilliancy which distinguished
the mind of Fox — when graced with the
earnest, simple benevolence of Wilberforce —
when animated with the gloAving fire of Cur-
ran — or when uttered with the dazzling elo-
quence of Chatham ! With what breathless
attention and absorbing interest will an au-
ditory listen to the discourses of an eloquent
preacher, who, after the example of that prince
of preachers, king Solomon, seeks "to find out
acceptable words ! " His doctrine drops as the
rain, and his speech distils as the dew. With
the law of kindness on his lips, and the love of
the Saviour in his heart, he is enabled to utter
words in season — whether of warning or of
encouragement, of terror or of consolation — the
full effect of which can never be comprehended
but amidst the disclosures of eternity. The
pathetic, subduing eloquence of Whitfield
moved, not only the illiterate multitude, but

22 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

the polished and educated nobles of the land,
who were led to admire the doctrinal state-
ments, or to endure the practical appeals of the
preacher, for the sake of the way in which, like
Apollos, he expounded the Scriptures.

True it is that much of the effect of public
speaking may, with propriety, be attributed to
the influence of an acquired art, and to a care-
ful attention to those rules which are laid down
for the proper management of the voice. But
no art can be a substitute for nature, and ifc
may be more than a conjecture that the rules
of oratory are little more tljau a classification
and arrangement, such as nature has indicated
shoidd control the voice and gesture when we
wish to impress our fellow-men. There is,
doubtless, a great difference between the voice
of an untutored peasant, who never thought of
the potency residing in this faculty, and who,
consequently, addresses his equals in loud and
discordant tones, and that of the man who,
with an educated mind and cultivated taste,
understands and uses his voice, as Handel un-
derstood and employed the organ ; and who,
whether he thinks of it or not, sways those who
hear him as with the rod of a magician. Some
of the most surprising effects of language are,
however, found in the history of savage life.
The eloquence of the various Indian tribes of
North America has often been described by
travellers as most wonderful. Sir Francis
Head, in narrating the proceedings of a council
of Red Indians which he attended in his ca-
pacity of governor of Upper Canada, says:

I

OF LANGUAGE. • 23

" Nothing can be more interesting, or offer to
the civilized world a more useful lesson, than
the manner in which the red aborigines oi
America, without ever interrupting each other,
conduct their councils. The calm dignit}'- of
their demeanour — the scientific manner in which
they progressively construct the frame-work of
whatever subject they undertake to explain —
the sound argument by which they connect, as
well as support it — and the beautiful wild
flowers of eloquence with which they adorn
every portion of the moral architecture they
are constructing — form altogether an exhibition
of grave interest ; and yet these orators are
men whose lips and gums are, while they are
speaking, black from the wild berries on which
they subsist."* In more civilized communi-
ties, without any pretensions to oratorical skill,
a few earnest, straightforward sentences have
bronglit the minds of a multitude of hearers
into agreement and co-operation wuth that of
the speaker.

We are not shut up to the forum, to the
council, or to the pulpit, for illustrations of the
extraordinary effects produced by articulate
speech, for we meet with its wonder-working
power in the most retired scenes of life. Of a
word fitly spoken it may be said, " How good
is it !" Words of warning and admonition fall
upon tlie ears, and sink into the hearts of men,
by Avhich souls are saved from death. Words
of kindness cheer the labourer and the dis-
couraged, Avho toil in the humbler departments
* The Emigrant, p. 147.

24 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

of human exertion. The utterances of con-
solation, derived from the gospel, are like a
balm to heal the wounded minds, and to bind
up the broken hearts of those who mourn for
sin, or are tried by suiFering in this dark,
bleak world. The melody of speech, whisper-
ing words of comfort to the departing Christian,
is frequently the last sound falling on the spirit
before it is w^elcomed by angel voices and by
the Son of God himself into everlasting habit-
ations.

It is one of the crowning honours conferred
upon speech, that God has employed it as a
medium of communicating his revealed will.
" He spake in times past to the fathers by the
prophets." In sounds intelligible to mortal
ears, the voice of God was heard by Moses,
while the many thousands of Israel assembled
around the mount of Sinai said to the pro-
phet, " Speak thou with us, and we will hear:
but let not God speak with us, lest we die."
That voice was often heard by inspired and
sainted men under the Old Testament eco-
nomy. Subsequently it spake out of the cloud,
at the Jordan and on Tabor, and testified to
the Sonship of the Eedeemer, and to the Divine
approbation of His conduct who was "the
brightness of the Father's glory."

And the Saviour, who was in all respects
made like unto his brethren, not only used the
language of the country in which he was born for
social and domestic fellowship, but employed it
as the medium of pouring instruction on the ears
of people who were very attentive to hear him.

OF LANGUAGE. 25

As in all things he had the pre-eminence, so as
a preacher of righteousness he was unrivalled.
The awful glories of authority, supreme and
overwhelming, mingled with his words as they
were uttered with the majesty of Deitv, and
subdued the minds of his hearers, who " were
astonished at his doctrine," and said, "Never
man spake like this man." The wisdom of his
preaching was beautifully attractive. He spoka
of all beings and worlds, as one who was alike
familiar with them all. With exquisite simpli-
city he brought down the mysteries of liLs
kingdom to the comprehension of the meanest
minds, and illustrated the glories of the hea-
venly world by the lowliest figures derived from
the things of earth and time, so that the com-
mon people heard him gladly. With unexampled
tenderness he reproved and instructed, cheered
and animated, those who followed in his train
and listened to his words. AYhether he spoke
to his disciples, in the darkness of the night, on
the lake of Galilee, subduing their fears with
the announcement, " It is I ; be not afraid" —
whether, in the hearing of parents forbidden to
bring their little ones to receive his blessing, he
said, " Suffer the little children to come unto
me" — or whether, in tones of lamentation, he
poured out his grief over the devoted city, or in
language of supplication besought his Father
for his destroyers — we see how true is the repre-
sentation that "grace was poured into his lips,"
and wonder at the kindness with which he con-
veyed his messages of mercy to the children
of men!

26 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

Now, forasmuch as it is unquestionably the
clorv of our common nature that the Son of
God took it into intimate union with his own,
so it is the glory of human speech that he
employed it in teaching mankind the way of
salvation. By many it is believed that our
Lord used the Syro - Chaldaic language; but,
supposing that he spoke generally, as we incline
to think he probably did, in Greek, and in
Aramaic occasionally,* this circumstance con-
.fers greater dignity on the Hellenic language
than do the writings of Plato and Homer. He
who knew what was in man, commanded the
glad tidings of salvation to be proclaimed in aU
the world by the living voice ; and now, after
the lapse of eighteen hundred years, he conti-
nues to employ it as the great instrument of
regenerating men, and of training them up for
a nobler state of being. It still "pleases God
by the foolishness of preaching to save them
that believe."

In every point of view in which it occurs to
us to consider the influence of human speech, it
.appears to be of great value. Its bearing on
personal happiness and relative enjoyment is
immediate and decided. Its importance to
■ domestic comfort and social intercourse is be-
yond a doubt. As an agent for advancing
pure morality and Scriptural piety its benefi-
cent power is vast and unquestionable. It may

* Persons who take an interest in the question involved in
this supposition may see the subject fully argued out in the
essay of D. Uiodati, entitled, "De Christo Gnece Loquente :^*
republished, with a learned preface, by the Rev. Dr. Dobbin.
London, 1843.

OF LANGUAGE. 27

well excite our deepest regret that this mighty
instrument of thought and will has been so
frequentl}'- wielded by the hand of weakness
and wickedness — of malignity and protynitv.
*' Therewith," says an inspired apostle, " bless
we God, even the Father, and therewith curse
we men." A most powerful reason is furnished
for the right application of this faculty by the
declarations of the great Teacher of mankind,
" By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by
th}'- words thou shalt be condemned." — " And I
say unto you, That for every idle word that men
speak, they shall give account."

It imparts peculiar value to language that
while it is, as we have seen, the appropriate
medium of conveying religious truth and con-
solation to the mind, it becomes, in turn, the
channel of utterance for the devotional feelings
of the regenerated heart, whose daily fellowship
is with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus
Christ. When God, by the power of his Spirit,
and by the agency of his word, whether read
or preached, is pleased to awaken in the sinful
mind of any individual of the human family a
conviction of its guilt and demerit, its unwor-
thiness and exposure to final condemnation, the
anxiety thus produced vents itself usually in the
vocal inquiry, " What must I do to be saved ?"
or prompts the utterance of the prayer, " God
be merciful to me a sinner !" And when our
heavenly Father, who taketh no pleasure in the
death of the wicked, but welcomes the returning
prodigal to his heart and home, imparts to the
contrite spirit that faith in Christ by which the

2S THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

ungodly are justified, and blots out as a cloud,
and as a thick cloud, by the sunbeam of his
love, the aggravated iniquities of numerous
years, the pardoned believer joyfullj' exclaims,
" O Lord, I will praise thee ; though thou wast
angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and
thou comfortest me." Thus, while " with the
heart man believeth unto righteousness, with
the mouth confession is made unto salvation."
In the subsequent exercises of the Christian
life, speech is sanctified and employed for noble
ends. The believer may use it, as he invites
others, in the language of the psalmist, to come
and hear him declare what great things God
" has done for his soul." His secret communion
with the Father of his spirit from day to day is
aided or carried on by the words of his lips. In
the closet, the tones of his own voice affect his
heart, and help it to rise to the fellowship of
the skies, while he pours out mingled expressions
of sorrow and joy, of fear and hope. In social
devotional exercises, speech is employed as the
vehicle of adoration and gratitude, of confession
and prayer, even while we worship in spirit and
truth the God of our salvation. On the couch
where parting life is laid, the Christian employs
the failing power of speech, as it flows from the
tongue, in part paralysed by the hand of death,
to breathe out the prayer, " Lord Jesus, receive
my spirit ;" and then goes up to hear the
Saviours voice, uttering the plaudit, "Well
done, good and faithful servant ; enter thou into
the joy of thy Lord."

It is cheering to remember that in this world

OF LANGUAGE. 29

of ignorance and guilt, the melody of human
speech is hourly flowing from countless lips in
praise and prayer. Infant voices proclaim the
honours of the Redeemer, the voice of thanks-
giving and rejoicing is in the tabernacles of the
righteous, and from the ends of the earth sounds
of salvation are heard, ascribing glory to the
Righteous One. The visions of prophecy reveal
to us the coming of a period when from every
land, and in every tongue, a loud united voice
shall be heard ascribing, " Blessing and honour,
and glory and power unto him that sitteth upon
the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever." May
the Lord hasten it in his time !

These somewhat extended references to the
superlative value of language are made with a
view to awaken interest in the subject of this
essay, and to engage the attention of the reader
in an investigation of the origin and history of
an endowment of the human race of the highest
order. Its advantao-es are confined to no one
class of the community, to no one age or clime,
but are extended to the whole family of man.
Even the comparatively few persons who, in con-
sequence of having been born deaf and dumb,
have never heard the music of speech, nor have
ever been permitted to exercise its organs, owe
much of their comfort and security to its capa-
bilities, as employed by their more favoured
brethren of mankind. With these rare excep-
tions, individuals of every rank and station, of
every age and character, can avail themselves
of the full advantages of this boon. And while
we are individually realising aU the benefits
3*

30 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

which flow from it as the instrument of mental
interchanges with our fellow-creatures, we may
consecrate it to higher purposes, while in
appropriate phrase, adapted to move our own
minds, we address the great Author of our
being as dependent on his goodness and mercy ;
and offer vocal thanksgiving to him, who has
made us jational and immortal creatures, capa-
ble of worshipping and of loving him for ever.
The blessing of speech is like the light of
heaven, or the common air, or the running
streams, the unmonopolised heritage of man ;
and J like these ordinary advantages, it is but
too -often undervalued, because of its common-
ness.

OF LANGUAGE. 31

CHAPTER 11.

Early attention bestowed on the origin of language— The
theory of one existing^ parent language— Diversity of
opinion as to the one— The revival of learning in Europe
— Its influence on this question — The comparative study
of languages a new branch of scholarship— Labourers in
this department — Objects of their study — Its supposed
bearing on Holy Scripture — Present state of the ques-
tion— The design of this inquiry.

It may be readily imagined that the subject of
language, being one of such deep and universal
interest, early and extensively engaged the
attention of mankind, and led to various in-
quiries into its origin, and to the steps by
which it arrived at its existing form amongst
the nations of the earth. This has evidently
been the case, inasmuch as vre know that dis-
tinguished ^vTiters, both ancient and modern,
have pursued the investigation, and have advo-
cated, Avith more or less of ardour and success,
different and opposing theories. Very many of
the researches, however, even of learned men
in former times, have proved themselves to be
of little valne to the general question, in conse-
quence of their direction to the attainment of
what is now regarded, by competent judges, as
an impracticable end. Assuming, as they did,
that there must be some one primitive language
in existence, from which all others were derived,
they were principally concerned 'to determine

82 THE OHIGIN AND PROGRESS

which Avas the one entitled to that honourable
distinction. But here an endless number of
competitors started up, and claimed the supe-
riority ; and almost every advocate of a favourite
theory was as confident that he had found the
lost language, as some recent travellers and
speculators have been that they have found, in
regions wide as the poles asunder, the ten
tribes of the house of Israel. Amidst these
conflicting claims, pertinaciously maintained,
there was little prospect of arriving at a satis-
factory conclusion.

The greater number of writers who pursued
their speculations by this theory were content —
on the authority of tradition, or from respect to
the language in which the Old Testament was
written — to assign the coveted pre-eminence to
the Hebrew tongue ; while some others con-
ceded it to the Abyssinian, regarding that
language as the one from which the former was
derived. National partialities and limited views
of the philosophy of language led other persons —
and those, too, of no mean name in the republic
of letters — to imagine that their own native
tongue was the oldest, and the parent of all the
others, Vv^hether living or dead. This ancient
and parental character w^as claimed, with great
positiveness, in the absence of all proof, or
with a show of very slender evidence, for the
Chinese, the Biscayan, and some of the Celtic
dialects, as the Welsh, and the low Dutch. At
this period the learned world — so far as it
entertained any opinion on the subject — re-
ceived the imuression that all existing languages

OF LANGUAGE. 33

must liave derived their descent from some
one parent stock yet extant ; and, with few
exceptions, believed that this was the Hebrew.

The grammatical studies which the Romans
had borrowed fi-om the Greeks, and Avhich they
had reduced to an excellent system, were nearly
lost sight of in what are called the dark
ages. The revival of letters in Europe — which
preceded and stood in close connexion with the
great reformation from Popery — with the inven-
tion of the art of printing, gave birth to that
philological spirit which distinguishes modern
scholarship. Originating in Germany, it was
soon transplanted to our own country, and
flourished to a great extent in our universities,
as is indicated by the fact that Erasmus taught
Greek at Cambridge as early as the year 1510.
But, in all that was done down to the days of
Bentley, regard was principally had to verbal
criticism, and to the correction of ancient classic
authors. Many able successors arose, from
Dawes to Porson, who have advanced tliis
department of scholarship to its utmost limits.
During this whole period, the long and much
cherished opinion of an existing parent lan-
guage was held in this country, and generally
on the continent.

In the eighteenth century, this notion Avas
strongly or indirectly attacked by the theories
of language advocated by several writers of
sceptical tendency. Considerable doubt soon
began to be entertained, even by persons
friendly to revealed truth, as to the sound-

34 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

ness of the received opinion, and its sufficiency
to accoLinc for all the facts of the case bearing
on the origin and progress of language, so as
to harmonize with the statements contained in
the Mosaic i-ecord. Up to this time the history
of languages, founded on an extensive and
accurate analysis of their grammatical as well
as their verbal relations, was an almost un-
trodden field. Leibnitz — whose comprehensive
genius, it has been remarked, seems to have
suggested the beginning of almost every im-
provement in science — had long before expressed
his dissatisfaction with the forced etymologies
resorted to with a view to establish the affilia-
tion of the European languages to an oriental
parent ; and showed that we must proceed by
comparison, rather than by derivation, and take
the widest possible deductions; comparing the
most simple and necessary terms in the lan-
guages of nations most remote in geograjDhical
position. But although the right method, as
we now think, was thus suggested, nothing of
great importance was performed till the opening
of the Sanscrit, or sacred language of India, to
Euroj)ean scholars. The similitude of Sanscrit
words and grammatical forms and inflexions
v/ith those of Persian, Greek, and even of Latin,
presented new channels of investigation, and
tempted the earnest and the bold — many of
whom were stimulated by the desire to resist the
growing sceptical spirit of the age — to explore
these untrodden Avays of learning, guided by the
sound and comprehensive principles of careful
comparison, v^dth a view to the classification of

OF LANGUAGE. 35

languages. This marked a new era in philolo-
gical disquisition, alike rendered memorable by
the names and labours of a host of competent
scholars, and by the brilliant and satisflictory re-
sults of their researches. These toils and rewards
have served to prove that the Christian church
has no interest in repressing philosophical in-
quiries and scientific pursuits, inasmuch as truth
can never be at enmity with truth ; and that
while errors may arise from partial discoveries
and prejudiced views, to the injury of Christ-
ianity for a time, their refutation, by the aid of
clearer liofht and advancino; discoveries, cannot
fail to enrich the evidences of revealed religion
through all coming ages. It is contended by
some writers, that tlie efficient commencement of
this study was undertaken by a few of our coun-
trymen in India, as Sir W. Jones and Dr. Carey,
who acquired a thorough and critical knowledge
of the Sanscrit language from the Pundits, and
made it, by their Avritings, accessible to European
students. From England the knowledge thus
acquired of this language passed into Germ.any,
and gave a wonderful impulse to the study of
comparative grammar there. The Sanscrit
was first cultivated on the European continent,
by a German Jesuit, Han Hanxleden, and a
German Carmelite, named Paulinus. They
published a book on the subject, at Rome, in
1790. These pioneers Avere followed by the
Schlegels, Frederick and William, and Othmau
Franke, who published a chrestomathy, and a
host of other scholars, among whom two of the

26 TEE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

most distinguished, who still survive, are Pro-
fessor Lassen, of Bonn, and Professor F. Bopp,
whose Comparative Grammar, nov/ accessible
to the English student, is beyond all praise, and
has vastly aided the study of language. Others,
as the Humboldts, Eitter, Kemusat, Grimm,
Chezy, and Rosen, have distinguished them-
selves in this department of learning, and laid
mankind under deep and lasting obligations.

If it be imagined that England has little to
offer that will bear comparison with our conti-
nental neighbours, in regard either to compara-
tive philology in general, or to Indian scholar-
ship -in particular, let it be remembered that
the labours of Sir W. Jones, Sir Charles Wil-
kins, and Professor \Vilson, in the latter de-
partment, and of Dr. Pritchard, Dr. Wiseman,
and Mr. Sharon Turner, in the former, have
resulted in no insic:nificant contributions to the
general design. And it is no small honour to
have been pioneers in this enterprise. While
the disposition to undervalue English in com-
parison with German learning is foolishly pre-
valent in this country, it is worth knowing
that the Germans give great praise to our
countrymen for their enterprise and industry
in the study of the Sanscrit language.

This vast improvement in the spirit and
object of philological investigations, in modern,
times, is seen in the fact that its most distin-
guished votaries now pursue it, not with the
intention of building up some previously-con-
ceived theory, but in the genuine spirit of the
inductive philosophy ; endeavouring rather to

OF LANGUAGE. 37

ascertain facts, and to arrive at any truthful
conclusion to which these will lead. And
whereas, in former times, inquirers principally
directed their attention to a verbal comparison
of languages, and traced out, minutely, real or
fancied resemblances, with a view to prove that
a sriven lano-uajje was the descendant or off-
♦shoot of another; recent investigations havp
been successfully directed to the distribution of
languages into groups or families ; by which
process, languages, which were usually regarded
as the most dissimilar, have been classified and
arranged in orderly form, by their undoubted
affinities. Of this result, and of its bearing on
the ultimate design of this essay, we shaU have
occasion to furnish certain illustrations in some
of our subsequent pages. In the mean time we
content ourselves with observing, that, in this
comparative study of languages, their gram-
matical elements are minutely decomposed and
compared, as well as their words, and that no
direct affinity is admitted between any of them
that will not abide the most severe scrutin}- .
The advocates of verbal, and those of gram-
matical comparison, have severally denounced
the principles of the other school ; but philo-
logical learning has, unquestionably, derived
advantage from both ; as their labours have
resulted in the disclosure of the rao'^t important
connexions in languages, grouped by the idioms
of nations, and in showing a wonderful con-
formity between those which were never sus-
pected to be mutually related.

The systematic labourers in this new depart-
4

88 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

jnent of learning have been much aided in their
work by the diligent inquiries of travellers,
who have, for various purposes, collected lists
of foreign words, and brought within reach
vocabularies of most languages of civilized and
l)a.rbarous communities, thus furnishing the
materials of extended comparison. Amongst
these voluntary contributors, justice demands
that we speak in honourable terms of many
Christian missionaries, who, in addition to their
chosen and appropriate work of preaching
the gospel of salvation to iite heathen, with a
view to turn them from darkness to light,
and from the worship of dumb idols to the
service of the living God, have devoted them-
selves, with untiring zeal, to the advancement
of civilization. In securing their great design,
as the benefactors of the most degraded of our
species, they have given letters to some bar-
barous nations, and constructed written gram-
mars for those who knew nothing of the laws
or parts of speech. They have also formed ex-
tensive dictionaries of many other tongues, by
which they have greatly aided philological sci-
ence in reaching its present exalted height, and
facilitated all future inquiries into the origin
and relation of language in general. In this,
as in some other things, they have shown that
learning and religion are compatible, that
taste may be combined with piety, and that
Christianity promotes all that appertains to the
welfare of man, as an inhabitant of earth and
time, while it alone secures his happiness in the
endless duration of tlie world to come. Men

OF LANGUAGE. 39

who have secluded themselves for years from the
refinement of civilized life to acquire a perfect
knowledge of a difficult language, in which to
speak words that should drop like seeds of
power into savage hearts — or who have dwelt,
like some of the African missionaries, in filthy
hovels, to catch the peculiar click of the Hot-
tentot language — have proved themselves, in
other particulars, capable of sympathizing with
the most refined and exalted pursuits which
bear, however remotely, on the general good of
mankind. Like the great apostle of the Gen-
tiles, they have deemed themselves " debtors
both to the Greeks, and to the barbarians ;
both to the wise, and to the unwise."

During the period when the science of phi-
lological ethnography was in a transition state,
it was much feared by some pious persons that
its researches were pointing to a conclusion
adverse to revelation ; and other parties could
ill conceal the pleasure with which they anti-
cipated that its demonstrations would falsify
the statements of the Bible touching the ori-
ginal perfection of man, and the unity of the
different races of the human family. We are
told, in the sacred writings, that the first in-
habitants of the world were a single pair, and
that from them descended all the nations of the
earth. This pair, of course, and their imme-
diate descendants, spoke one language ; and
this language Avtis, after the deluge, broken up,
by a miraculous interposition, into a number
of idioms. We are not told, nor is it probable,
that the original Adamite language was abo-

40 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

lished, and that all these varieties were so many
new creations ; on the contrary, we should ex-
j)ect that, however diiFerent these tongues might
become by the confusion introduced at Babel,
and by the incongruous habits of different tribes,
there would still be traces of a common origin.
It is the acknowledged tendency of philology
to establish this.* Thus it has happened with
language, as with astronomy, geology, and the
hieroglyphics of Egypt — from all of Avhich, at
different times, an unfavourable verdict has
been anticipated on the truthfulness of the
Bible — that every conclusion arrived at is in
entire harmony with the testimony of the
Scripture which " cannot be broken." His-
tory, science, and sound philosophy, can never
be found adverse to that blessed book, which
bears upon its pages the impress of heaven,
and which has been exposed to every possible
test, through a succession of ages, still proving
itself to be the word of God, which liveth and
abideth for ever.

" Like some tall cliff that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm;
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread.
Eternal sunshine settles on its head."

By the labours of others, as thus narrated,
though pursued with an object different to that
•which we propose to ourselves, our path is
happily prepared for prosecuting our present '
inquiry with a degree of safety and pleasure,
and with a confidence of success, which could
not otherwise have been felt. Still, it must be

\ * See Donaldson's .New Cratylus, p. 13.

OF LANGUAGE. 41

admitted that there are many and formidable
difficulties remaining in the way of our arriv-
ing at undoubted conclusions on some of the
debateable points which are fairly opened by
the question; for conflicting opinions are still
maintained concerning them, with considerable
ingenuity and show of reason. The subject
itself is involved in deep obscurity as it recedes,
in some of its principal features, from our view,
into the most remote antiquity, and as it is
blended with some matters of doubt, not capa-
ble of easy solution. Human knowledge in
this, as in other departments, has its bounds
aries, which we may approach, but not pass
over. While, however, the precise limits of at-
tainment are not clearly defined, there remains
a vast space of open ground on which we may
lawfully exercise our powers of investigation.
Inquiries, such as those to which we now bend
our attention, if undertaken in a right spirit,
may be made at once interesting and instructive,
for the streams of human learning roll over
golden sands, and we may collect their scattered
grains, work them into fine gold, and present
them as an acceptable offering on the altar of
the cross, in the sanctuary of heavenly truth.

The questions which are now to claim our
consideration respect the manner in wliich
mankind were first induced to employ arti-
culate sounds for communicating their thoughts
to each other, and the steps by which the vari-
ous languages of the earth have reached their
present form. In other words, we may state
4*

42 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

the former part of the subject thus: Is the
faculty of speech natural, or acquired? Is it
the result of instruction, or of imitation, or of
both ? Is it the gift of God, or the invention
of men ? When these points are settled, so far
as we are able to accomplish their settlement,
we shall proceed to examine the questions:
Was there one primitive language, or many?
And, if the former, by what means was the
existing diversity effected ?

It will be at once perceived, by every
thoughtful reader, that these interrogatories
open a wide field of contemplation, and present
to view some interesting collateral s^ubjects,
which will claim passing observation, in order
to the due elucidation of the main topics of
inquiry. It would ill become us to dogmatise
on any of the matters involved in the subject,
which may be supposed to furnish but imper-
fect data, or even to profess to exhaust a theme
so prolific, within the limits assigned to this
treatise. Extensive grammatical or etymolo-
gical comparison would scarcely comport with
our design, which is to convey a popular view
of a somewhat intricate subject, and conse-
quently will not be attempted ; while the results
of such comparison, as effected by others, will
be stated in aid of our object. To affect great
originality would only be a betrayal of vanity,
forbidden by the master spirits who have
brought to this department of scholarship their
most mature and learned capabilities. Some
service may, however, it is thought, be done
to the cause of science and of revealed religion,

OF LANGUAGE. 43

if we condense the facts and reasonings on the
subject of general language, which are scat-
tered over many volumes, inaccessible to the
masses of our reading population, construct
our own argument out of materials thus col-
lected from various regions, and avail ourselves
of the refreshing light shed by the most recent
investigations upon our theme. As it would
be alike unphilosophical and unchristian to
make this attempt without reference to the
Mosaic records, the oldest writings in the
world, we shall gather up the intimations
which the inspired and invaluable history of
Genesis and. the other sacred books contain on
the subject, walk fully in their light, so far as it
shines, and estimate the conclusions at which
we may arrive, just in the proportion in which
they shall appear to harmonize with the testi-
mony of Holy Scripture. We value this book,
and are made to feel its supreme worth in all
studies connected with the nature of mind, and
with the history of our race ; for while it is
emphatically a revelation of God, it is scarcely
less so of man, describing as it does the time
and manner of his creation — the capabilities
with which he was endowed in his primeval
state — the mournful change which passed over
him in consequence of sin — and the possibility
of his restoration, by the renewing influence of
the Holj'- Spirit, to greater dignity and happi-
ness than that from which Adam fell ; while the
destiny aAvaiting him, as an heir of immortality
beyond the grave, is herein unfolded to his be-
lieving view.

44 THE ORIGIN AND PKOGRESS

CHAPTER III. .

Definition of langua8:e — Metaphorical application of the
term — Natural signs — Symbolical representations —
Systematic signs — The supposed connexion between
words and ideas —Examples supplied by the Hebrew and
English languages — Radical expressive sounds and let-
ters— Theobjectof language— The ORIGIN of language —
Question stated — Theory of its invention — Advocates of
this hypothesis — Its absurdities — The weight due to
names as authorities on the subject — Advantages pos-
sessed by modern over former writers on language.

Some definition or description of what is in-
tended by language may be desirable before we
proceed in our design to speak of its origin.
The English word is derived immediately from
the French, langiie, and that from the Latin,
lingua., a tongue. We employ the term, vaguely,
to describe the various established methods by
Avhich human beings convey to each other their
thoughts and desires, and more strictly we
apply it to articulated speech and to written
communications. Dr. Blair defines language
to be " the expression of our ideas by certain
articulate sounds, which are used as the signs
of those ideas." This definition is substan-
tially adopted by subsequent writers on the
subject, in encyclopaedias, and other works ;
but it appears to us, nevertheless, to be de-
fective, because it does not include a reference
to all the states of mind of which language is

OF LANGUAGE. 45

expressive. Language may be brief!}'' and
comprehensively described as " The vocal or
■written expression of thought and emotion,"
constituting itself, as it does, the handmaid
both of the intellect and of the heart.

The term, language, is applied metaphorically
to several other modes of expression, by which
ideas are made to pass from mind to mind, as
when we speak of the language of looks, or of
the language of signs. The whole class of
natural signs, consisting of modifications of the
features, gestures of the body, and other more
passionate expressions of emotion, are usually
brought under the denomination of natural
language. These are, Avith some propriety,
termed natural, in contradistinction to conven-
tional language, as they appear to be made, if
they are not interpreted, instinctively. We
tremble, turn pale, or blush, not because we
have seen others thus act, nor with a design to
develope our mental feelings — which we may
often wish in such circumstances to conceal —
but because these indications are prompted by
nature, and are generally the manifestations of
existing states of mind. It is not, however, so
clear, that these signs are instinctively inter-
preted aright ; for, on the supposition that we
had never laughed or trembled, nor had seen
others thus act, nor had been instructed in the
connexion between the mental feeling and its
expression, we should be unable to understand
the meaning of laughter or of trembling.
Even the smile or frown of a mother is not
instinctively interpreted by the babe, whose

46 THE ORIGIN AND PKOGRESS

powers of observation must be awakened, and,
to some extent, cultivated, before it is able to
attach any meaning to the frown or to the
smile, and still less to the one as distinct from
the other.

Several other modes of communication, in
frequent use, are generally described as natural
signs, because they furnish methods of speaking
by action, which can be readily adopted where
oral communication is undesirable or impos-
sible. Inclining the head forward, as a token
of assent ; or shaking it, as an intimation of
disapprobation, is almost natural to children,
and is often adopted for convenience by adults.
Waving the hand, to denote a wish that a
person should recede or approach ; or kissing
it, in token of respect, are actions all but
universally understood. The use of such signs
is more common with some other nations than
•with ourselves, either as a substitute for, or
as an aid to, articulate speech. Amongst
ancient oriental tribes, moral instruction was
extensively conveyed by the language of signs,
and it is still used in eastern countries for
ordinary purposes to an extent unknown in
this land.

And as adapting itself to the habits and pre-
dilections of the Jewish people, God was pleased,
at times, to employ a most striking and im-
pressive series of symbolical representations,
embodied in a series of actions which he com-
manded— as when Jeremiah broke a potter's
vessel, threw a book into the Euphrates, and
put on bonds and yokes — or as when Ezekiel

OF LANGUAGE. 47

portrayed on a tile a besieged city, or scattered,
divided, or burned, the locks of his head. We
do not refer to these for the purpose of classify-
ing them under natural signs, but regard them
as remarkable methods adopted in the -vvisilom
and condescension of the Divine Being, with a
view to express affecting truths to a people who
were slow to comprehend, and still more back-
ward to believe, the parabolic or even the
literal words of the holy prophets.

A carefully constructed system of signs lias
been' invented, by the benevolent ingenuity of
the present day, to alleviate the calamities of
the dumb, by means of which they are not
only enabled to hold intercourse with each
other, but to receive elementary truths from
others, and, above all, to understand and to
enjoy the consolations of that religion whose
gracious Author, in the days of his flesh,
according to the prediction of ancient prophecy,
caused " the tongue of the dumb to sing." All
these signs, however, and many others, in-
cluding the art of pantomime, as formerly in
extensive use, are clearly inadequate to our
entire wants as intellectual and moial agents,
and are, therefore, not strictly included in our
view of language. In the more restricted sense
in which we now employ the term, we shall
regard it as the vocal utterance of words and
sentences ; because these embody and convey
the understood illustration of the sentiments, of
which written language is constituted, more
palpably and permanently, the sign.

Whether words are merely conventional
I

48 THE ORIGIN AND PEOGRESS

symbols, or -whether any natural connexion
exists between ideas and words, were points
much debated by some ancient writers, and are
matters on which some diversity of opinion
exists at the present day. Allowing it to be
very probable that, at first, such a connexion
extensively, if not universally existed, the con-
nexion cian only affect a small portion of the
fabric of language as now constituted ; because
different articulated sounds are now employed in
various tongues to describe the same thing. The
connexion, therefore, between most thoughts
and words may justly be considered arbitrary,
and the result, generally, of agreement amongst
men. There is, however, little reason to doubt
that language, the nearer we approach to its
rise, becomes not only more natural and simple,
but, so far as it goes, more capable of ex-
pressing by sounds the qualities of the things
which it represents. Hence, we find in some
of the Semitic languages, which have not un-
dergone any great amount of change for many
generations — as in the Hebrew, for instance —
that proper names are, to a remarkable extent,
expressive of the properties of the things or of
the persons which they were intended to desig-
nate. The attempt, naturally made in the
earlier stages of civilization, to represent by
vocal sounds the qualities of the objects denoted
by these sounds, was evidently, to a great
extent, successful ; for, in all languages, we find
some words, at least, thus constructed.

The opmion has been entertained by several
writers on language, that it is comparatively

OF LANGUAGE. 49

easy to imitate, by the tones of the human voice,
the quality of the sound or noise made by any
external object around us. As an illustration
of this theory, we may observe that the Hebrew
tongue is known to have many words, the
sounds of which are considered to accord well
with their signification. A familiar instance
of this is furnished by the word ^^P horey^ a
partridge, which means " a caller," and is ex-
pressive alike of the nature of the bird, and of
the cry it utters.* The word '^'^^ la-ye-lah,
night, has been cited, by Calmet, as another
instance, because the sound of the word is
supposed to be imitative of the nocturnal
howlings of hyasnas. These examples, hoAV-
ever, appear to us more fanciful than true.

Other and more extensive illustrations of this
theory are furnished in the structure of the
English language. We have many words in
common use, the signification of which seems
to be definitely conveyed by their sound, as
when one sort of wind is said to ichistle, and
another to 7'oar; when a serpent is said to hiss,
and a fly to buzz ; when falling timber is said
to crash ; and when a stream is said to floic ;
or hail to rattle. In these, and in many other
instances which could readily be selected from
our own tongue, some kind of analogy between
the words and the actions sij^nified bv them is
plainly enough discernible.

Notwithstanding all that has been plausibl}^
said in favour of this theory, and the somewhat
striking proofs and illustrations occasionally

* Gesenius's Hebrew Lexicon. In loc.
X 5

50 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

presented of its trntlifulness, we venture to
question the opinion that words of this order
have a definite meaning in themselves, or an
adaptation to suggest the particular thought or
feeling usually attached to sound ; and we still
incline to the belief that they obtain all their
meaning from convention and use. When
uttered in the hearing of an Englishman, they
suggest certain analogies, but to a foreigner,
ignorant' of our language, or to one unac-
quainted with all its niceties of idiom and of
sound, even the characteristic words we have
now cited as examples would fail to convey any
adequate conception of the qualities- of the
things they describe. It is not intended by
these remarks to deny altogether the natural
significancy of some words, because apparent
remains of a relation between them and the
objects represented by language can be traced
to a considerable extent; but, forasmuch as the
analogies thus instituted furnish so much scope
for the play of fancy and the flights of a wild
imagination, all speculations and assumed re-
sults of investigations, in this department, should
be received with much caution in the attempt
to form a general theory.

This principle has, however, been imagined
extensively to pervade all languages in another
ibrm, inasmuch as it is said that they contain
radical letters and syllables expressive of the
most distinguishing qualities of sensible objects.
M. De Brosses* and Dr. Wallis have elaborately
defended this view. The last-named writer

In his Traits de la Formation Mechanique des Langues.

OF LANGUAGE. 51

represents it as a peculiar excellence of the
English language that, beyond all others, it
expresses the nature of objects and actions be
sounds, which we sharpen or soften, weaken of
strengthen, according as the idea to be sug-
gested requires. Examples of what is intended
in these views are furnished in the initial
letters of words in daily use. For instance,
those which are formed upon st, are supposed
always to belong to, and to denote properties
of firmness and strength, as standi staff, stamp.
Words beainnino; with 5^?', are said to be indi-

Co '

cative of violence and energy, as strive^ stripe,
stretch. Those commencing with thr, are held
to imply forcible motion, as throw, throb,
through. This theory likewise assumes that
the terminations of words frequently present
tlie same characteristics. Hence, those ending
in ash, are supposed to denote something acting
sharply, as gash, rash., slash,; and those ter-
minating in ush, something acting more ob-
tusely, as in crush, hnisJi, hush. Some radical
letters, it is held, carry this expressive power in
most, if not in all, European languages; as /,
denoting fluency ; cl, a gentle descent ; r, as
having relation to rapidity of motion ; and c, to
cavity or hollowness.*

There is much more of ingenuity than of
sound philosophy in the opinions now passing
under review. Something of this supposed
analogy may have pervaded language in its
earlier stages; but as terms came to be mul-
tiplied in its progress, words would, by various
* Blair's Rbetoric, Lee. vi.

52 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

irregular metliods of derivation and composition,
deviate Avidely from the primitive character of
their roots, and so lose all conformity in sound
to the things they designate. Moreover, in the
names of objects which address the sight only,
Avhere neither noise nor motion is concerned,
and still more in the terms appropriated to
moral ideas, the analogy appears altogether to
fail. But this question is fully argued in
Harris's Hermes, to which work reference may
be made for further information on the subject.
He says, as the result of an extended investi-
gation,* " Language is not a picture of the
universe where the words are as figiires or
images of all particulars. Words are the sym-
bols of ideas, both general and particular ; yet,
of the general primarily, essentially, and imme-
diately ; of the particular, only secondarily,
accidentally, and mediately." This view ap-
pears to us to be reasonable and just, as it
represents words to be the symbols, and not
the imitations, of things ; for that verbal signs
are for the most part arbitrary, is evident from
the fact that other signs might have been fixed
upon equally well adapted to teach the meaning
which the present symbols convey. " A rose
would be as sweet with any other name."

The object or design of language appears to
be so simple, that we might well wonder that
any diversity of view should have been enter-
tained concerning it ; and yet diiferent notions
have been propagated respecting this, which
resolve themselves into two distinct theories.
* Book iii. chap. 3.

OF LANGUAGE. 53

One of these assumes that the object of hm-
guage is to express our thoughts and feelings
to our fellow-creatures ; and the other, that its
design is to produce certain thoughts and feel-
ings in the minds of those we address. An
objection, more plausible than sound, has been
brought against the former opinion, by affirm-
ing that language is often subordinated to the
purpose of concealing the thoughts, or of dis-
sembling the feelings of the speaker. " What
is the object of language ?" said some one to
Talleyrand, who is reported as having quickly
replied, in the true spirit of a mere diplomatist,
" To conceal thought." It is admitted that
language is sometimes employed for such an
end, but this use or abuse of speech is justly
held to be a deviation from its original purpose.
It was not intended to be an instrument of
deception, nor is it usually so employed in
communities pervaded by correct moral senti-
ments and a regard to the authority of the
God of truth. The law of mutual relation and
dependence, under which the human race sub-
sists, teaches us that we are not to live to
ourselves, but for others ; and that, in carrying
out the great design of our earthly existence,
the strong should help the weak, and the wise
instruct the ignorant. This principle, appli-
cable to language as to all other endowments,
conveys to us a conception of the object of
speech, which is to impart our opinions and
emotions with a view to benefit and enrich
others; while this direct end may be considered
in connexion with the ultimate design of pro-
5*

54 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

ducing impression and eliciting thought. It
is the means of exhibiting our views to oui
fellow-creatures, and that exhibition becomes
the instrument of producing similar thoughts
in the minds of others. The object embraced
by language is comprehensively benevolent.

Having offered these definitions and general
descriptions, which were apparently necessary
for the right understanding of our subject, a
more important question now claims our atten-
tion. This respects the origin of language. Is
it then " of heaven or of men?" Only two sub-
stantially opposite opinions can, we think, be
formed respecting it, as it must have been
either the gift of the Creator, or the fruit of hu-
man invention. Yet these separate views have
sometimes been held with such modifications,
or have been stated with so much of reserve, as
to conceal the more objectionable features of the
one — which attributes it exclusively to man ; or
to explain away much of the value and philoso-
phical clearness of the other — which ascribes the
faculty of speech to the benevolence of the ever
blessed God, " from Avhom cometh down every
good gift, and every perfect gift." The ancient
and modern advocates of those speculative sys-
tems of unbelief, which aim at excusing the
moral pravity of our nature by depreciating
that nature itself, have assumed that man is ^sl
mere animal, an organized clod of a superior
order, and that the savage state is natural to
him. On the basis of this assumption some
modern philosophers have built up their theory
of language, contending that the faculty of

OF LANGUAGE. 55

speech is the mere instinctive expression of the
wants and desires of associated animals, who
contrived for ages to do without it, and who
only gradually invented language for mutual
convenience, which in due time was established
in its present form, by the general consent of
the parties employing it.

This theory assumes that in the infancy of
society men would put forth an effort, aided by
the promptings of necessity, to communicate to
each other their common instincts ; and that
for a considerable period they confined the
interchange of thought to those natural signs
of which we have already spoken, namely,
variations of the countenance, gestures of the
body, and movements of the hands. It further
supposes that men eventually found out that
they possessed the power of uttering certain
cries, such as Oh ! and Ah ! and that they
poured forth these exclamations under the
influence of some of the passions or feelings
of which they were susceptible. Beyond this, it
is imagined that when any particular noise dis-
tinguished any object to which they Avished to
direct attention, they attempted to secure that
end by imitating the sound, with their own
unformed, unmodulated voices ; and that the
effort thus put forth suggested to some distin-
guished genius the possibility of employing
articulate sound as the basis of conventional
language. While the advocates of this theory
suppose that so difficult an art has not been the
invention of many nations, they think that
it was originated by different communities,

56 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

at various times, and in remote parts of the
world, and that this accounts for the diversity
of spoken language now existing. The writers
who espouse this theory of invented language
imagine that, aided by analogy, they can trace
all the steps by which the newly-discovered
powers of the human voice became fully em-
ployed, and likewise the method by which the
rude materials of language were gradually built
up into an orderly system.

Holding that the motive, in a barbarous state
of society, for attempting to speak at all would
be to obtain gratification from the possession of
some object, for which the concurrence of other
persons was necessary, they assume that the
imperative verb — as denoting the desire to
accomplish an end, either by direct command, or
by request — was created as the nucleus, or fun-
damental part of language ; from which not only
the other forms of the verb branched forth, but
from which the other classes of words and parts
of speech were gradually formed. This hypo-
thesis has been advocated by others, only with
this difference, that they imagine that savages
who had never been taught to speak would,
when they met in the chase or in fishing exj^e-
ditions, endeavour to make their sentiments
intelligible to each other by uttering certain
sounds, whenever they meant to denote visible
objects, and would thus begin to give names to
things ; after which, they would classify indivi-
duals under a species denoted by a common
name, and then proceed gradually to the for-
mation of all the other parts of speech.

OF LANGUAGE. 57

The great champioii of this theory, in its most
objectionable form, -was Lord Monboddo, ^vho
has sought to estabUsh it by tlie most reckless
assumptions, the boldest conjectures, and the
most contemptible sophisms, affecting the form of
arguments. He asserts tliat man, in his natural
state, is a mere untamed animal, and supposes
that he at first possessed the countenance and
appendage of a monkey, but that education has
gradually brought him to his present erect and
intelligent form. To prove his point, he cites the
opinions of Lucretius and Horace, who describe
the human race as rising from the earth, mute
and savage. He quotes descriptions from Dio-
dorus Siculus, and other ancient ti'avellers, in
support of the hjpothesis that men were found
in this state. "When pressed with the dilKculty,
that there could be no rational society without
language, he resorts to a subterfuge, and
selects examples from beavers and foxes !
Such is the candour, the logic, and dignity of
the chief advocate of the invention of speech.

This theory of the origin of language is more
worthy of the ravings of an insane mind, than
of the calm deductions of a rational creature.
To imagine a number of bipeds, little removed
from the beasts that perish, simultaneously
smitten with a desire to improve their nienud
anil moral condition, by using the dormant
faculty of speech, exceeds all the bounds of a
moderate credulity. To suppose them by some
inexplicable method assembling to express tliis
desire to each other, though as vet no woixi
had been spoken, vastly juigments the folly.

58 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

And tlien to think of their adopting a language,
however rude, and resolving on henceforth
employing it, instead of the howl or bray,
which had previously served their purpose, is
the climax of absurdity. But as this hypothesis
is supported by a show of proof, however fal-
lacious— ^by an array of authorities, frequently
garbled or misquoted — and by the most un-
blushing assertions of its truthfulness — it
becomes us to rebut it with the weapons of
reason, to which edge and power may be given
by a reference to the history of man, as con-
tained in the book of God.

And here we wish distinctly to observe, that
the great questions involved in this inquiry
are not to be settled by the authority of names,
however ancient or learned. Still we do not
shrink from any comparison which might be
instituted between the writers who have
maintained opposing theories on the subject ;
whether the investigation has respect to num-
bers, or to the weight justly attached to their
opinions. W% grant that some ancient heathen
authors imagined that language was earthly in
its origin, and maintained, with Lucretius,*
that it was gradually formed by savages for
mutual convenience, and by mutual consent ;
but this opinion being in harmony with many
of their grovelling ideas, now discarded, it can
have but little weight with reflecting men in
times vastly in advance of the darkness of
heathenism. If it should be alleged that these
authors lived nearer to the sources of informa-

Lib. V. 1027, 8.

OF LANGUAGE. 59

tion than we do, the reply is obvious, that
they had no means of .acquiring information
on the subject Avliich are not accessible to us.
Besides, the preponderating weight of opinion
amongst the ancient philosophers, in reality, lies
on our side of the question. Tlieir references to
it are, indeed, few ; but in these they usually
ascribe the origin of speech to the gods. They
generally held that language was coeval with
man ; and it was reserved for the infidels of
Europe, in the eighteenth century, to describe
it as a human invention, Cicero,* in speaking
of the original state of man as brutish, makes
eloquence the instrument by which social insti-
tutions were established ; clearly implying that
he thought men, even in that state of degra-
dation, possessed the power of language, and
consequently the means of intellectual and
moral improvement. Indeed, nearly all the
voices of antiquity agree in this, that know-
ledge in general is derived from the Supreme
Being, and that, by parity of reason, speech — as
the means of extending that knowledge — must
claim equally a Divine origin. "j"

And it should be remembered, that if, half
a century since, some distinguished persons
among the literati of Europe embraced and
advocated the theory of a human invention of
language, there is reason to believe that their
aversion to Christianity, and to revealed reli-
gion in general, led them but too readily to

* De Inventione.

t See Ellis " On the Knowledge of Divine Things," who
quotes from Plato and others, to this effect.

60 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

adopt any hypothesis, upon any question of
history and science, which appeared to mihtate
against the authority of the sacred Scriptures.
They made no secret of their deadly hatred to
the gospel of Jesus Christ ; and any scheme of
history, or of interpretation, which promised
to be a means of impugning its veracity, was
unscrupulously adopted by them.

Moreover, and apart from all reference to
the alienated state of mind from the Bible, in
which they evidently commenced and carried
on their examinations of our subject, it is not
to the opinions of Volney, Monboddo, and
Adam Smith, that we are called, by the reason
of the case, to submit our judgment, as they
lived at a time when the true principles of
philological comparison were not generally
understood, nor even extensively propounded.
They had no such means of arriving at a just
conclusion on the subject in debate, as are
furnished by recent investigations to the most
slender scholar. All the persons who have
most profoundly studied the question have
arrived — and that, in many cases, without any
respect to the authority of revelation — at a con-
clusion diametrically opposed to that of flippant
infidel writers, but to one in general harmony
with the Scripture narrative. Now, as an
intelligent writer on astronomy would be a
better authority on that science, coming after
the discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton ; or on the
nebular hypothesis, if writing after the observa-
tions made by Lord Rosse's telescope, than
would a person of equal intelligence who went

OF LANGUAGE. 51

before ; so, other things being equal, the opin-'
ions of modern writers on the origin of
language are of more value than those of
persons who wrote previously to the dis-
coveries of Humboldt, Adelung, Yater, and
others, their fellow-labourers.

The boasted authority of infidelity for the
invention of language thus falls to pieces. But,
as we have said, the question is not to be de-
termined by names, but by arguments derived
from the facts of history, sacred and profane,
and from the nature of the case. Our oj^ponents
give us, indeed, but little in the shape of argu-
ment to demolish, but, in its stead, present to us
the most dogmatic statements of improbabilities,
v/hich they require us to regard as well-ascer-
tained facts. To these, and to the objection-
able principles involved in their theory, we
now proceed to direct our best attention.

62 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

CHAPTER IV.

Objections to the theory that language is a human invention
— No period can be assigned to its invention— If invented,
it is more than probalile that there would be some record
of it — Tlie strong improbability of men inventing it -Tiie
relative perfection of the most ancient languages— Their
independence in structure of the advances of civilization —
The physical impossibility of inventing speech— Language
indispensable to some of the ends of man's creation — Phy-
sical construction of the organs of speech — Harmony of
Divine wisdom and benevolence in the entire creation— The
savage state is not the natural condition of mankind —
Causes which have promoted or retarded social improve-
ment.

As our first objection to tLis notion of language
having been invented by the ingenuity of man
to meet the necessities of his advancing nature.
Ave confidenf.ly state, that no period has ever
been assigned by its advocates as the one in
which it probably origitiated. The recorded
history of man stretches backward over a line
which embraces, not merely centuries, but
thousands of years, and the traditional recol-
lections of many nations ascend upward to a
time still more remote ; yet in the written or
uuv/ritten traditions of all these communities
DO ei-a is marked as the one when this wonder-
ful power took its rise. The memory of events
far less important to these nations is retained
and cherished, but all of them are silent con-
cerning the origin of speech. The invention of

OF LANGUAGE. 63

printing in Europe, and the introduction of
letters to some ancient as well as modern
nations, when emerging from barbai-isra, are
narrated as interesting and unquestioned facts,
and rival claims have even been set up ior the
honour of introducing the one and the other ;
but no solitary claimant appears for the un-
rivalled distinction of having conferred this
inestimable boon upon his species. The
periods when some of the arts and sciences
sprang up, flourished, or decayed, are inscribed
on the roll of history ; but no note is taken of
the time when men began to speak, nor of the
method by which they acquired that wonderful
power. This is a negative argument which
none will call in question.

Now it is preposterous to imagine that so
great an epoch in the career of any nation, as
that which would have been created by the
discovery of language, should have passed
over it without leaving some memorial of itself,
in the grateful recollections of subsequent ages.
If language owned a human inventor, it is next
to impossible that no traces of the master mind
which laid the whole human race under such
imperishable obligations should now exist ;
but. though we should travel over the whole
range of man's history, searching all the
archives of the past, and interrogating all the
oracles of existing intelligence, we nowhere
find any vestiges of such a benefactor or bene-
factors of the human race. The conclusion, in
tne absence of all incidents that could invali-
date it, appears to be inevitable, that language is

64 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

an indispensable attendant of man's existence ;
that no community of human beings ever lived
without it ; that it would be as wise to inquire
when man began to see or hear, as to ask when
he began to speak ; and that God, who con-
ferred on him the gift of reason, at the same
time bestowed on him the power of speech, as
the channel through which his reasoning
powers should flow and act.

This conclusion is strengthened by the great
improbability of men in a savage state, or,
indeed, in any state, being capable of inventing
language. There are, unquestionably, many
wondrous things which man can do, and there
are many other things which as clearly lie be-
yond the province of his most exalted powers;
and this appears, without any reasonable doubt,
to be included amongst the things he can-
not accomplish. There are individuals who,
in regard to particular subjects and operations,
possess, instinctively, that discernment and
facility of acting, which, in the generality of
cases, are the results of habits acquired only by
long and laborious exercises. Thus some per-
sons, in early years, almost intuitively acquire
a knowledge of music, and even compose very
difficult pieces. Others have mastered, by a
speedy or instantaneous operation of the mind,
very abstruse questions in arithmetic ; while
others have a wondrous aptitude to compre-
hend and to solve mathematical problems.
And in reference to the subject more imme-
diately under our consideration, there are ex-
amples on record of individuals, v/ho attained a

OF LANGUAGE. 65

knowledge of several languages in early life
with the most wonderful facility. Superior
skill in invention has characterized other minds
in a no less extraordinary degree; yet amongst
all these no one has ever arisen, who discovered
an aptitude for the invention of a new language.
We have yet to learn that man, in the most
favoured circumstances of earth, is competent
for the undertaking.

There is no fact, in the ascertained history of
our race, which would favour the notion that
the idea of speech originated with man — that
he laid its foundation, or reared its glorious
architecture. On the contrary, all the existing
testimonies, furnished by the history of lan-
guages, decidedly discourage the idea. If it
were otherwise, we might expect a gradual
improvement in the grammatical structure of a
language ; and to find some tribes at least, in
the lowest stages of civilization, using nothing
hut interjectional words, or employing language
incapable of being reduced to anything ap-
proaching to grammatical forms. The very
reverse of this state of things is, however,
realized. We find, on comparison, that the
ancient languages are usually the most perfect,
and have the greatest number of inflexions, as
may be seen by comparing the Sanscrit with
the Greek, and the Latin with the Italian.
This opinion is supported by the decisions of
the most competent scholars. " If any one
thing,"* says ]Mr. Donaldson, *' more than
* New Cratylus, b. i. cli. 3, p. 52.
G*

i)0 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

another, can show the absurdity of those who
speak of an invented language, it is simply tnis
fact, that the oldest languages are always tne
richest in materials, the most perfect in analogy,
the most uniform in etymological structure.
Philology, too, instructs us that those very
■words, which the advocates for an invented
language consider the most difficult to invent,
and, therefore, as the last introduced, are, in
fact, the basis of all language ; for instance,
the pronouns and numerals, which Adam Smith
considers of recent introduction, are known to
have been the oldest parts of every tongue, for
it is just these words which retain their identity
in languages which have been longest separate,
and have, therefore, become most unlike in
other particulars. The effect of increased use
upon the structure of inflected language is
rather to weaken and corrupt, tlian to improve
and amplify."

There is no evading the force of these strik-
ing fiicts by assuming that the older known
languages sprang out of others, rude and less
perfect ; for the most barbarous tribes, hitherto
discovered, are found to possess not only the
faculty of speech, but a regular system of
vocables, presenting to the philologist a sym-
metrical language, realizing all the organic
attributes of the most polished tongues. Ample
illustration of this is supplied in works, pub-
lished by Christian missionaries, relating to
the inhabitants of the Sandwich, the Samoan,
and other islands of the South Pacific ocean, and
to the Bechuana, and other barbarous tribes

OF LANGUAGE. 67

of Southern Africa, into whose languages ele-
mentary books, and even the sacred Scriptures,
have been translated without difficulty, as they
were found to furnish words adequate to repre-
sent all the truths Avhich these books contain.

The structure of language is evidently inde-
pendent of the stages of civilization, for we find
in the grammars of some barbarous languages
a framework as perfect as in that of the most
polished nations ; and it would be impossible
to invent, or to bring into their construction, an
additional part of speech. The principal dif-
ference in existing languages, even amongst
those the most remote from each other, is found
in their relative copiousness of terms, or com-
parative harmony of sounds, in which some
modern languages may have the advantage ;
though this is often gained at the expense
of some of the more valuable qualities of
language. The speech of natives in a state
of rude simplicity would stream freely from
the breast, swelling with redundancy of ex-
pression, replete with the richest and most
significant compounds, and ever bursting forth
into melody and song. " The pride of litera-
ture," says an acute anonymous writer, in
the Cambridge Philological Museum,* " is
sadly humbled when we examine the rustic
dialects, whether of our own or of any other
tongue, and perceive how . very slight and
minute is the influence exercised by books,
even in the course of many centuries, on the

* Vol. ii. p. 248.

68 THE ORIGIN AND PROGIIESS

spoken language of the people. A few extra-
neous words will now and then take root among
them ; but even if you sow the finest pippin it
comes up in the shape of a crab. So far are
the lower orders from borrowing grammatical
forms from the higher, that the very words
which they do adopt they almost always dis-
figure and distort, in order to bring them under
the analogies they themselves are wont to be
guided by."

The impossibility of inventing language is
not in any degree removed by the supposition
that ages, or even thousands of years,, were
allowed for its accomplishment. Jean Jacques
Rousseau — whose opinions on the theoretical
history of language are entitled to somere,^ard,
and who was himself far removed from any
suspicion of a desire unfairly to uphold the
credit of the Bible — has said, " If language be
the result of human convention, and if words be
essential to the exercise of thought, language
would appear to be necessary for the invention
of language. But when, by means which I can-
not conceive, our new grammarians began to
extend their ideas, and to generalize their words,
their ignorance must have confined them within
very narrow limits. I stop at these first steps,
and intreat my judges to pause and consider the
distance between the easiest part of language,
the invention of physical substances, and the
power of expressing all the thoughts of man,
so as to speak in public and influence society.
I intreat them to reflect on the time and
knowledge it must have required to discover

OF LANGUAGE. 69

numbers, abstract words, aorists and all the
tenses of verbs, particles, syntax, the art of
connecting propositions and arguments, and
how to form the whole logic of discourse. As
for myself, alarmed at these multiplying dilfi-
culties, and convinced of the almost demon-
strable impossibility of language having been
framed and established by means merely
human, I leave to others the discussion of the
problem, whether a society already formed was
more necessary for the institution of language,
or a language already invented for the estab-
lishment of society ? " *

The ordinary circumstances and phenomena
which gather around the history of language
all tend to invalidate the hypothesis of its
invention. For instance, it is just possible for
a person to lose the art of speech, by omitting
to employ it. A language imperfectly learned
may be readily forgotten ; and it is only with
extreme industry and perseverance that a man
advanced in life can overcome the difficulties
of learning a new language, so as to speak it
with anything like propriety and fluency.
How, then, could the uncivilized learn of them-
selves to speak? It is true that there are
some few instances on record of individuals
%vho were born dumb being taught to speak ;
but the difficulties of the attainment were over-
come by skilful masters, who moulded the
organs of speech, and taught their pupils, by
imitation, to articulate words. There could,

* Quoted in the Dissertations of the Encyclopaedia BriUa*
nica, 4to., p. 174,

70 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

however, have been no one to do this for the
assumed inventors of speech, as all must have
been alike ignorant of the means by which
articulation is effected. " The experiment,"
says a judicious writer, "has been made more
than once, of training up children separate
from the society of men ; and the event has
been, that they talked no language at all ; they
could not so much as articulate, nor utter any
more sounds than deaf and dumb persons can
do; and it is reasonable to believe that, with-
out the Divine instruction at first, and human
instruction since, men would have continued
mutum et turpe pecus, little superior to the
beasts of the field."* The instance mentioned
by Herodotus f is no real exception to this
invariable result ; while the case recorded by
Purchas,^ and the more recent one of a savage,
who never learned to speak, though placed
under suitable instructors in the deaf and dumb
school of Paris, confirm this statement.

The physical impossibility of men inventing
speech has been well described by several
writers, and among them by Dr. Sumner, the
present learned and pious primate of England.
He says, " Whoever has watched the progress
of speech in children, will have found that it is
not dependent upon the gradual enlargement of
their ideas, since they always understand much
more, and earlier, than they can express ; but
upon the facility, acquired by degrees, of adapt-
ing the organs of speech to the expression ol

* Dr. M'Gill's Rhetoric, p. 8, f Lib. ii. cap. 2.

I t Jesuits' Letters.

OF LANGUAGE. 71

certain sounds."* And Dr. Johnson is reported
by Boswell characteristically to have said,
" Language must have come by inspiration. A
thousand, nay, a million, of children could not
invent a language. While the organs are
pliable, there is not understanding enough ;
and by the time there is understanding enough,
the organs have become too stiff. Inspiration
seems to me to be necessary, to give the man
the faculty of speech, and to inform him that
he may have speech, which, I think, he could
no more find out without inspiration than cows
or hogs."

These statements and reasonings appear to
us to be conclusive, and their weight is greatly
increased by the fact, that they apply with
much greater force to man in a savage state
than in a civilized condition. "We are, doubt-
less, eiititkid to ask, Do barbarous men, or
savages, invent languages, or even create ori-
ginal w'ords now ? And if not, when did the
process cease ? and why ? The fact is, that it
appears to be almost as practicable for man,
whether savage or civilized, to create a particle
of new matter, or to form a sixth sense, as to
invent a fresh verbal root, and to secure its
general adoption. And if unable to do that
which is less, how can he do that which is
vastly greater ? Experience and observiition
teach us that it is nuich easier to improve than
to invent, and by this our conviction is strength-
ened that it is impossible for man, in a savnge
state, to possess the intelligence and ingenui^y
* Records of Creation, vol. i. p. 4-1.

72 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

involved in the construction of the most imper-
fect jargon that has ever been dignified with
the name of a language. Indeed, before we
could yield our assent to the possibility of an
invention of language, we should require to be
shown, either a species of animated beings
which, not being naturally endowed with
speech, has supplied the defect for itself; or, a
species which, having the power of articulate
speech, does not possess an actual language.
As we have no expectation of meeting with
.either of these phenomena, Ave unhesitatingly
reject a doctrine, which, for self-evident ab-
surdity, is only equalled by the theory of
spontaneous physical development, to which it
appears closely allied, as we shall presently
perceive.

Still further, our objections to this theory
rest not even here, for it is assumed by the
hypothesis we are combatting, that the human
species was brought into being in such a state
as to make it an exception to the perfect con-
dition in which all other creatures came out of
the hand of God. The entire absence of arti-
culate language, on the part of man, would
have placed him in circumstances so incon-
gruous to his exalted rank in creation, as to be
at variance with all the just conceptions we are
compelled to entertain of the wisdom, power,
and goodness of God, as displayed in all the
other departments in which his creative energy
has been observed. An examination of the
wide and diversified field of nature, so far as
we have survej'cd it, convinces us that every

OF LANGUAGE. fS

organized and living thing, above, beneath, and
around us, is qualified for its end, and fitted to
realize the design of its being. It appears to
us, that it would have been a violation of the
unity and harmony thus pervading the universe^
if man had been constituted an exception to all
the other productions of Divine wisdom and
benevolence, by being left to work out, through
a tedious process of generalization, a vehicle of
utterance for the dictates of his understanding,
and for the desires of his heart. Though
possessed of a superior nature, he would have
been incapable, till this uncertain work was
accomplished, of giving expression to any
emotions loftier or purer than those which be
possessed in common with the brutes that
perish ; and to indulge the notion that such was
the fact would be " to charge God foolishly."

Nor is this all ; for, on this supposition, brutes
were dealt with more favourably than man, as
they were enabled more readily, and without
any degree of uncertainty, to reach all the ends
of their creation ; while it is assumed that for
a2:es men were unable to realize some of the
great objects for which they were constitu-
tionally intended. From the beginning, man
was placed at the head of this lower world,
and invested with mental endowments far be-
yond mere animal life and sensation, however
delicate ; and beyond instinct, however won-
derful. He was possessed of a rational and
social nature, which is indicated by the intelli-
gence of his countenance, and the warm and

74 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

Triendly emotions of his heart. Yet, without
the gift of speech, most of this capacity would
have been lavished upon him in vain. ^Socially,
it would have been of no advantage that the
first human pair had powers of intellect to con-
template the beauties of external nature, and
to make observations upon them, if they had
not the power of expressing to each other their
.sense of the great happiness they possessed.
" All the brute creatures had their natural
language adapted to their several organs, and
■understood, by instinct, from the beginning.
And can we think that man, who was more
especially made for society, should be the last
to share in the privileges of it?"*

The vocal organs in the human subject are
clearly constituted with a view to the utter-
ances of the voice. The larynx, epiglottis,
pharynx, tongue, palate, and lips, are all Iramed
in such a manner as to show, incontestibly, that
they were designed for producing such sounds
as we employ in articulation. The original
possession of a physical conformation, so ad-
mirably adapted for the formation of articulate
sounds, certainly indicates that God blessed
man v/ith the power of speech immediately upon
his creation, and furnished him with the ability
to exert these organs to their proper end. If it
be worthy of God to provide the minutest in-
sect with the means of obtaining its sustenance,
and with the instinct necessary for its pre-
servation, it is at least equally worthy of his
benevolent wisdom to have enabled the highest
« Winder's History of Knowledge, vol. i. p. 11.

OF LANGUAGE. 75

creature under heaven, made only a little lower
than the angels, to perform at once the greatest
ends of his being. " The use of language
would be immediately necessary for the tolera-
ble accommodation of human society ; what is
requisite for us now must have been so for
them ; and it is plain Ave can have very little
mutual satisfaction without conversation."*

On the principle for which we contend, we
discover a beautiful harmony in the arrange-
ments of Creation and Providence, in making
adequate provision for the wants of our animal
and rational nature. When the Almighty fur-
nished man with a desire for food, and with
proper organs to masticate and to digest it, he
did not leave him painfully to seek for the neces-
sary supply, but placed him at once in the midst
of a rich and plentiful variety. " And out of the
ground made the Lord God to grow every tree
that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.
And the Lord God commanded the man, say-
ing. Of every tree of the garden thou mayest
freely eat."f Li like manner we reason that,
when God endowed him with powers which
could find their appropriate exercise only in
the communication of thoughts to his equals, or
in the expression of devout gratitude to his
Maker, he did not leave him and his descend-
ants to labour, doubtfully, for ages, to invent the
medium of such utterances, but blessed him at
once with the capacity he required, and fur-
nished him with knowled2:e, directing him to
the right use of faculties wqrthy of his cha-
* Dr. Winder, vol. i. p. 9. t Genesis ii. 9, 16.

76 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS '

racter and position, as the great proto-type of
the human race.

• The theory of invented language is built
upon an assumption utterly baseless and un-
true. Its advocates insinuate, or take for
granted, the notion that the lowest stale of
human existence was the starting point of
every nation of the earth. This opinion meets
with no sort of countenance from universal
history, nor from the history of any particular
community with which we are familiar, but
the contrary. We have no authenticated in-
stance of any tribe emerging from a savage to
a civilized state by its ov/n unaided energies.
The writers to M'hom we except have taught,
in direct contradiction to the only authoritative
statement on the subject, that man was created
in the lowest condition of savage life, that his
religion was the rudest worship of nature^ and
his morality that of the cannibal. All civilized
nations are represented, by their hypothesis, as
having risen from this point, and gradually
passed, through barbarism and polytheism, to
social refinement and the worship of the true
God. A figure, involving a fallacy, has been
used to obtain consent to this theory. The
similitude of an individual passing through
infancy and childhood to youth, and to the per-
fection of manhood, through successive stages
of being, in which the feeblest moral powers
and the strongest passions are exhibited, is not
a correct figure by which to portray the intel-
lectual and moral progress of the race. As no
historical nor other proof is offered to establish

OF LANGUAGE. 77

this hypothesis, Ave reject it, and incline to the
belief that, if men had been created savages,
they would have remained such. The fact, that
human beings are found in a savage state,
proves nothing against this view of the subject,
because it is well known that men and com-
munities retrograde as well as advance in the
career of civilization ; and are deteriorated
quite as readily, to say the ^ast, as they are
improved by the influence of circumstances.

As no good reason hitherto has been afforded,
so we apprehend that none can now be given,
to show that the first state of mankind must
have been the lowest position of humanity,
and that society commenced its progress from
the most dismal and wretched of all earthly
conditions. We are bold to affirm, on the tes-
timony of revealed truth, that the savage state
is not the natural state of man. Indeed, it is
evident that he is fitted and designed, by his
original formation, for nobler ends than that
state implies. It is every way reasonable to
conceive that he was created with intelligence
vastly superior to that of savage life ; that
being a finite and dependent creature, he has
wandered from the path of holiness and bliss,
and sunk, intellectually, as he has degraded
himself morally, in the scale of the intelligent
creation. This conception harmonizes with the
word of God, from whose teachings we learn
that man was made upright, that he fell from
his allegiance to his Creator, and that nations
have wandered greatly from the primitive faith

and standard of morals into all the labyrinths

7*

7<S THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

of heathen error. " They did not Hke to retain
God in their knowledge." But society, in its
most degraded type, could not long have existed
without speech ; and the notion is most pre-
posterous, as we have shown, that it could have
been invented by parties who existed without
the bounds of a civilized community. It
affords us pleasure to cite from the writings of
John Gottlieb Finite a sentiment in favour of
this truth. The philosophy of that distin-
guished man was pantheistic, and exercised a
baneful influence on the rising mind of Ger-
many and other lands ; but there is, happily,
good reason to believe, that several )'ears be-
fore his death he renounced his philosophic
atheism, and became a Christian. He thus
stated his conviction of the primitive state of
man. "Who educated the first human pair ?
A Spirit took them under his care ; as is laid
laid down in an ancient, venerable, original
document, which contains the deepest and sub-
limest wisdom, and presents results to which
all philosophy must at last return."*

The historical facts, which may appear ad-
verse to our interpretation of the inspired re-
cord, are in reality not opposed to it. Many
nations have been elevated from a savage con-
dition to a lofty standing in the rank of culti-
vated communities ; this improvement, how-
ever, originated not in their own enterprize,
but appears to have sprung from the influence
of individuals or colonies belonging to nations
more intelligent than themselves. Thus the

* Dr. Pye Smith's Lectures on Geology. 2nd. ed. p. 224.

OF LANGUAGE. 79

aborigines of Greece were tamed, and had
the germs of civilization implanted in their
midst, by the Pelasgi, a race of doubtful origin,
but Avhose power on the destinies of that com-
munity for good is unquestioned. The Romans
were advanced in the earlier stages of their
improvement by foreign aid ; and their con-
quest of Europe paved the way for the civiliza-
tion of its barbarous regions. Our own
country was delivered by the Roman sword
from Druidism, the great barrier to its social
and religious advancement, and had some of
i-ts foundations of prosperity laid even during
the time it wore the Roman yoke. Some bar-
barous tribes are now rapidly rising to take
their place in the great femily of civilized
nations, by the mercantile and Christian influ-
ence of Great Britain and other enlightened
nations. Had the savage state been natural to
man, we see no reason, therefore, to doubt that
it would have been perpetual ; but it bears no
•evidence of having been the original state: on
the contrary, " the fine sentiments and romantic
traditions which gleam through the fables of
men found in the lowest stages of barbarous life,
point to a purer condition in a departed age."*
Nothing approaching to the uniform progress
of nations, supposed by the theory we oppose,
has been realized. Differences of national
character, in distinct families of the human
race, have inmiensely advanced or retarded
their moral and intellectual progress ; and it is
equally clear that the physical geography of
* Dr. Hamilton's Nu^ae Literariae, p. 116.

80 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

the several parts of the earth has influenced the
happiness and greatness of their respective
inhabitants. These influences, in connexion
with the resuks of the rehgious truth or error
held by any people, fully account, under the
providential arrangements of God, for the rela-
tive position now occupied by nations and
smaller communities on the scale of extended
civilization. That distinguished and lamented
man, and eminent historian, the late rev. Dr.
Arnold, has said, " The boundless and unman-
ageable mass of earth presented by the con-
tinents of Asia and Africa has caused those
parts of the world which started the earliest in
the race of civilization to remain almost at the
point from whence they set out ; while Europe
and America, penetrated by so many seas, and
communicating with them by so many rivers,
have been subdued to the uses of civilization,
and have ministered with an ever-growing
power to their children's greatness. Well,
indeed, might the policy of the old priest
nobles of Egypt and India endeavour to divert
their people from becoming familiar with the
sea, and represent the occupation of a seaman
as incompatible with the purity of the highest
castes ! The sea deserved to be hated by the
old aristocracies, inasmuch as it has been the
mightiest instrument in the civilization of man-
kind. In the depth of winter, when the sky is
covered with clouds, and the land presents one
cold, blank, and lifeless surface of snow, how
refreshing is it to the spirits to walk upon the
shore, and to enjoy the freshness and liveliness

OF LANGUAGE. 81

of the ocean ! Even so in the deepest winter of
the human race, when the earth was but one
chilling expanse of inactivity, hfe was stirring
in the waters. There began that spirit whose
genial influence has now reached to the land,
has broken the chains of winter, and covered
the face of the earth with beauty."* We will
not detract from the /orce of this exquisite
passage by any comment ; but content our-
selves with adding, that those nations who
are most favoured by their natural position, as
Great Britain obviously is, are laid under
strono; oblifration to render their best assistance
to those whose lot is less happy and less pro-
mising. It is a circumstance, on the whole,
highly favourable to the interests of humanity
and religion, that English institutions and Bri-
tish influence are extending themselves in every
part of the earth.

* Note on the Progress of States, appended to the first
volume of the Edition of Thucydirtes.

82 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

CHAPTER V.

Continuation of objections t^ the invention of languaire—
The theory is opposed to the statements of the sacred
writings— Authority and value of the Pentateuch, or
live books of Moses— Substance of its statements on this
subject— Notices of man when created— In his abode,
employment, social relation, and religious character —
Inference as to the possession of speech — Scriptural
proof of the advanced civilization of the early patriarchs
— Their existence as communities required the use of
language— Strength of this argument — Rapid improve-
ment of mankind— Conclusions deduced from it.

Our ultimate appeal, on that particular brancli
of the subject which has now passed under
review, as on all the other points which it
involves, is to the authoritative statements of
the Bible. Happily for our present argument,
we are not only able to invalidate the dogmatic
assertions of sceptical writers on this point by
such considerations as those we have adduced,
but we are in a condition to prove that, so far
from the savage state being that of our first
progenitors, they were created in such circum-
stances as to demonstrate their having possessed
the power of speech, and the knowledge of
language.

On the authority of the Mosaic record, we
learn that the founders of our race were brought
into the world in the full maturity and per-
fectioa of their nature ; made, as they were,
intellectually and morally in the image of God.

OF LANGUAGE. 83

Apart from the inspiration of the writings of
Moses, that great prophet and legislator of
Israel, there are many circumstances which
challenge the attention and homage of mankind
to him as the historian of the earliest ages.
His history " merits our greatest veneration on
every account which makes history valuable.
Whether we consider the high antiquity of its
dates ; or the vast importance of his materials ;
or the exactness of his chronology from the
beginning of the world to his own times; or the
perfection of his intelligence.

" The learned pagans distinguished all past
time into three divisions ; the hidden, the
mythic, and historic time. But where is the
unknown time of Moses ? Where is his mythic
or fabulous time ? He is altogether as clear in
his accounts of the creation as of the flood ; and
ihe plantation of the antedihivian, as of the
postdiluvian, world."*

Moses has been termed — with far more pro-
priety than Herodotus was — " the father of
history." Sanchoniathou, Berosus, and Ma-
netho, are the oldest human historians ; but
Moses wrote " five hundred years before the
first, and more than a thousand before the last."
His writings, consequently, are the only com-
petent authority by which to decide the primi-
tive condition of the race. His direct and
unhesitating testimony to the intelligence and
holiness of man, when created, is sustained by
the traditional recollections and impressions of
the most ancient nations. Interrogate them as

* Winder's preface to History of Knov?ledge, vol i. p. vi.

84 THE ORIGIN AND TROGRESS

you please, in reference to their early history,
and you will find some traces of an impression
that their fathers lived in a golden age. Many
of their fables seem to shadow forth the fact, as
when Minerva is represented springing fall
armed from the head of Jupiter. Some of their
more enlightened philosophers, as Plato and
Socrates, had glimpses of this truth. Aratus
of Cilicia, and Cleanthes — in his noble hymn —
Avere quoted by the apostle Paul in the court of
Areopagus, as having said that " men are the
offspring of God."*

The brief authentic account of the original
condition of man given in the Bible will only
appear meagre and unsatisfactory to a super-
ficial reader of that inspired and invaluable
record. On careful examination, it will be
found to yield a variety of precious hints in
reference to the intellectual condition of man
Avhen he came out of the hand of his Creator.
As we examine his condition by the lamp of
revealed truth, we shall find that — so far from
being cast upon the world to perish in ignor-
ance and destitution, or to work liis way up
with laborious difficulty and uncertainty, from
the disadvantageous position in which he was
placed — all the germs of the loftiest civilization
resided in his spirit, or surrounded his person.
And with a view to the illustration of this fact,
we shall now proceed to gather up those scat-
tered intimations, which are contained in the
earlier pages of the sacred book, concerning the
primeval condition of man.

* Acts xvii. 28.

OF LANGUAGE. 85

The place previously created and prepared
for the abode of the first human being was not
the lair of a savage, nor the desert of a bar-
barian, but the home of a highly civilized
being. Thus we read in Gen. ii. 8, " The
Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden ;
and there he put the man whom he had
formed." Wliile we are unable to determine
the precise locality and boundaries within
which Paradise was situated, we have reason to
conclude that it was in the fairest part of the
new-made world. And it is unquestionably
evident that the productions, animate and
inanimate, of the garden were such as to
minister gratification to Adam, as a being far
in advance of barbarous life, for " out of
the ground made the Lord God to grow every
tree that is pleasant to the sight," Gen. ii. 9.
Placed thus in the midst of a region of fertility,
and in a garden presenting exquisite forms of
physical beauty, he would be, to a certain
extent, divinely instructed in the use of nature,
and especially in the properties of the various
fruits assigned for his support.

The activity and stated employment to which
the first man was introduced, was compatible
only with the attributes of a civilized being.
God had ennobled labour by his own works
which he had created and made, and he sus-
pended the happiness of his newly-formed
creature on his daily service ; yet this was
not of the lowest or most fati2:uin2: form. He
was not employed to hunt the beasts of the
earth and to live on prey, but was engaged as a
8

86 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

cultivator of the soil. " The Lord God took
the man, and put him into the garden of Eden
to dress it and to keep it," Gen. ii. 15. He was
not to be a wanderer over the face of the earth,
but to possess a " local habitation," a sure and
quiet dwelling-place. Accordingly, we read
nothing of hunting as a mode of supporting
life, till the days of Nimrod, after the flood.
Adam did not pursue a wild nomadic calling,
but cultivated a garden for his support, drinking
the limpid stream, and partaking of fruit — the
prepared bounty and recompense of his labour.
This employment supposes the use of suitable
implements, the fornuition of which, though the
simplfst description alone was necessary-, would
exercise his ingenuity, and, in the absence of all
models, would prove the possession of con-
siderable mental power and skill.

The employments of man in Paradise in-
volved some knowledge of zoology, of the
domestication and training of animals, which
were placed under his control. This is evident
from the recorded fact, that the Lord God
brought every beast of the field and fowl of the
air " unto Adam, to see what he would call
them: and whatsoever Adam called every living
creature, that was the name thereof," Gen.
ii. 19. Li this act, joined with the subsequent
one of naming Eve, we have not only evidence
of the varied knowledge and intelligence of
man, inunediately after his creation, but we
have unquestionable proof that language was
coeval with his origin, and that it was applied

OF LANGUAGE. 87

by him to a wide range of objects in the earliest
days of his existence.

We thus find man, in his first occupations,
immediately capable of giving suitable names
to the various tribes and classes of animals,
and of reasoning consecutively, and in perfectly
appropriate terms, concerning his own situation,
and the relation he stood in to other creatures.
In his first attempts at speech we can discover
no crudeness of conception — no barrenness of
ideas, no inexpressive or unsuitable terms. It
is, therefore, rational to conclude that, when
endued with corporeal and mental powers
perfectly adapted to his condition in life, he
was blessed with the power of speech as essen-
tial to the perfection of his being ; while the
exercise of the newly- bestowed power would
be regulated by the force of circumstances and
the exigencies of his untried position.

"We have further evidence, from the same
inspired source, of the moral civilization of the
first man in the notices furnished of his social
condition. The institution of marriage, while
ministering to his personal comfort and to some
of tile ultimate ends of his creation, clearly
indicates the high state of his affections, and
the holiness of his character. There was found,
in the mother of us all, a being fitted to be the
companion of unfallen man, who was consti-
tuted the husband of one wife ; though it is
intimated by the prophet Malachi, chap. ii. 15,
that God, " having the residue of the Spirit,"
might have given him more than one such

/
88 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

companion : but one alone was granted, that a
godly seed should be preserved in the earth.
Polygamy is ever an attendant upon a bar-
barous, or a semi-barbarous, state of society;
and its entire absence amongst the earliest of the
patriarchs, excepting Lamech, is a significant
intimation of the advanced character of the life
to which the immediate descendants of Adam
were introduced.

The responsible position of the first man,
shoAvs his acquaintance with vocal language.
He was placed under laws given through its
medium. To him, and to his, were allowed
the free use and enjoyment of all the fruits of
the garden he occupied, with one solitary ex-
ception : " Of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil thou shalt not eat of it," Gen. ii. 17.
The tree of life, in the midst of the sacred
inclosurc, appears at once to have been to him
the sacramental pledge and means of life.
Those laws under which he was wisely and
benevolently placed were enforced by the pro-
mise of reward, and by the threatening of
punishment. The right apprehension of this
rule of his being, and of the results of obedi-
ence and disobedience, involved rationality and
responsibility of a high degree ; and the way
in which it was proclaimed, not by symbol or
by type, but by the voice of the eternal Jehovah,
intimates to us that he became familiar with
his duty and with his destiny by a gradual
comprehension of the power of language, as it
fell upon his newly-opened ear.

In addition to this, the laws given by the

OF LANGUAGE. 89

Creator to the first pair respecting marriage,
tlie propagation of their species, and the sub-
jugation of the earth for their support, toge-
ther with other discoveries of the Divine wiJl,
were communicated through the medium of
language. They obviously conversed with God
and with each other. It was by the channel
of an oral language that the tempter infused
the first taint of sin into the human heart,
breathing his poison with his words. And
this is a statement of facts, embracing a real
event in the history of man, and not a mythical
representation to be understood by the fanciful
aid of an allegorical system of interpretation.

The art most necessary for man as a social
being, from the moment that Eve was formed
out of him to be his companion, was language.
" In what sense could it be said that a meet
companion for the man was found, if there
were not given, to both, the power of communi-
cating their thoughts by appropriate speech?
If God pronounced it not good lor man to be
alone — if with multitudes of creatures sur-
rounding him he was still deemed to be alone,
because there was none of these with which
he could commune in rational correspondence —
if a companion was assigned to him, whose
society was to rescue him from this solitude —
what can be inferred, but that the indis-
pensable requisite for such society, the powers
and exercise of speech, must have been at the
same time vouchsafed?"*

And the nature of man, as a religious being,

* Archbishop Magee on the Atonement, vol. ii. p. 68,
8*

90 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

demanded the exercise of speech from the
beginning. The earhest worship of our first
parents could not have been purely mental and
meditative, but would be maintained socially,
and by oral language. The knowledge which
man, in his individual capacity, would possess
of the Father of his spirit, called for the power
of language suitably to employ it. Though
there appears to have been no written revela-
tion of the Divine will, made to him at the
beginning, 3'et from the various works of nature,
spread out before his wondering gaze, he would
learn much of the character and perfections of
God. In the heavens above, kindled with noon-
day splendour, or lighted up with nocturnal
glory; in the earth around him, with its foliage
and flowers, its green sward and meandering
streams ; and in his own person " fearfully
and wonderfully made," he would view, with
unclouded mind, the evidences of eternal power
and Godhead, written as with a pencil of living
light. As a creature who felt and cultivated
the consciousness of his entire dependence
upon his Creator, he would be prompted to
those exercises of devotion which would bring
his mind into fellowship with Deity, and in
this he v/ould be greatly aided by the utter-
ances of his own voice. Remembering, as he
frequently would, that all the conveniences and
blessedness of his new-formed existence were
the gifts of Divine love — that the breath he
drew, and the rational capabilities he possessed,
were all bestowed from heaven, and depended
for their continuance on the sovereign wiU of

OF LANGUAGE. 91

Jehovah — he "would be led to the utterance of
thanksgiving, blended with fervent supplication.
True it is that no altar was erected in Eden,
and no expiatory sacrifice presented there ; but
in the temple of man's grateful spirit the
incense of a pure devotion would constantly
ascend to God.

From such considerations as those which we
have now adduced, it appears to us as clear, as
though it had been expressly revealed in so
many words, that the conscious power of vocal,
intelligible utterance was coeval with man's
existence ; and that the first human pair, called
into being in all the j^erfection of an adult
state, did at once exercise that power, and
recognise it as the gift of God. And this con-
clusion, while diametrically opposed to the
theories framed in opposition to the i|cred
Scriptures, is equally adverse to those A^ich,
admitting the truth of the Mosaic record, yet
attribute to Adam the gradual formation of
language as his w^ants and circumstances de-
manded. The Bible represents him as using
the powers of speech before the production of
Eve ; and, consequently, immediately after his
own creation. It is unreasonable to suppose
that he could have devised such a mode of
communication with others before any human
being with whom to converse existed ; and
utterly impossible that he could intuitively
have applied his inflexible and unexercised
organs to the delicate and difilcult work of arti-
culation, without Divine aid. The first use, as
well as the capacity, of oral language is to

92 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

be attributed, tlierefore, to a supernatural reve-
lation.

Although the apostasy of man from his
Maker involved him and his posterity in the
most awful consequences bearing upon his
moral character and destiny, there is not the
slightest reason for supposing that it removed
from him the pow^er of language, or threw his
immediate descendants down into the gulf of
a savage state. On the contrary, we find the
Creator reasoning with his rebellious children
on their guilt, passing sentence of condemnation
on them and on their tempter, couching in
figurative but beautiful phraseology the pro-
mise of the Saviour's advent and victory in the
fulness of time, and dealing with them in all
respects as with beings who, though rendered
guilyp and miserable by their fatal apostasy
from him, were yet rational and responsible.

The narrative with which we are favoured
of the early history and settlements of the
family of Adam, represents them as living
together in one place, or diverging to separate
localities in companies, and attending, in general,
to agricultural and pastoral avocations. During
the long period which intervened between the
fall of man and the destruction of the greater
part of the human family by the waters of a
flood — which, according to the most valuable
chronologists, w^as about two thousand, or two
thousand two hundred and fifty years* — man-
kind were preserved in a state of civilization,
and, in all probability, made considerable ad-
* See Dr. Hales's Chronology, 2nd ed. vol i. pp. 212, 215.

OF LANGUAGE. 93

vancement in tlie arts of life, and in the career
of general improvement.

Man, though fallen, was still favoured with a
revelation of the Divine will, and with the
means of approach to God by the presentation
of atoning sacrifices, which were types of the
great Sacrifice offered in the end of the age,
on the brow of Calvary. It is not true that
Fetichism, or the deification of nature, is the
infancy of religion. Neither its lowest form —
the worship of beasts, nor its highest — the
Sabean reverence paid to the host of heaven,
was known before the flood. A pure Theism
prevailed, and the one true God was wor-
shipped. Seasons of social or public worship
were periodically observed, as is evident from
this fact, that, from the beginning, time was
divided into weekly periods of seven days, and
the sabbath, set apart from, secular purposes,
was devoted to the service of God, On that
day we can readily imagine the patriarchs, vho
were at once the priests and prophets of their
families, assembling their households at an
appointed locality. This, probably, was at first
in front of the garden of Eden, where were the
cherubim, between which was the presence of
the Lord, and which appears to have been the
place where, by Divine appointment, men
ought to worship. Places sacred to the worship
of God were afterwards multiplied.

The civilization implied in the constant
orderly Avorship of one God was unquestionably
realized by all the patriarchs, and this mode of
worship, teaching, as it does, that there is one

94 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

equal Father of the human family, would have
been incompatible with the spirit and institu-
tions of savage life. This worship, we know,
was maintained from Adam to Noah, and
various spots in the antedikivian world conse-
crated to the service of Jehovah. " Abraham
planted a grove in Beersheba, and called there
on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God,"
Gen. xxi. 33. Jacob summoned his family to
*' arise, and go up to Bethel," the scene of his
early dedication and of gracious manifestations,
there to redeem the vows he had made in
trouble, Gen. xxxv. 3. It would appear that
on temples were then erected, but altars were
reared, pillars were set up to commemorate
interesting events in connexion with the Divine
government, and to these sacred spots the
tribes went up as unto the testimony of the
Lord. It is probable that fire from heaven
marked the Divine acceptance of the wor-
shipper by consuming his offering ;* and that,
assured by this of the favourable regard of his
Maker, he would go down to his house justified
and comforted. The Christian mind cannot
fail to rejoice in these intimations of the
glorious fact that the light which now shines
perfectly upon us in the gospel shed its
morning beams on the earliest of the patriarchs,
who, like Abraham, desired to see the day of
the Messiah, beheld it, and were glad. Men
thus favoured to hold communion with God,
and to anticipate the advent of the world's

* Compare Genesis iv. 4 — 7 with 1 Kings xviii. 38.

OF LANGUAGE. 95

Redeemer, in the far remote future, must have
been in a state greatly removed from tliat of
savages.

It is still further evident, from the frag-
mentary notices and incidental glimpses of
domestic and social life, afforded in the Penta-
teuch and in the book of Job, that all the
elements of a civilized condition were found in
the earliest patriarchal communities. They
enjoyed the blessings of the domestic compact,
and the advantages of combination for mutual
su[)port and defence. They were not wandering
savages, who procured a precarious existence
by hunting and fishing, who met each other
but seldom, and then in disjointed bands, and
without the privilege of interchanging thought
by oral language. On the contrary, they
usually dwelt with each other in peace, sur-
roimded by the means of social comfort, and
bound to one another by the ties of clanship
or of fraternal affection.

The philosophic theory, as it calls itself, of a
'gradual improvement and constant advance-
ment from the lowest point to the perfectibility
of human nature, is thus confuted by the
strongest evidence — the evidence of facts. Ac-
cording to this progressive philosophy, Adam
and his immediate descendants were hunters,
supi^orted by the produce of the chase, till their
increase of numbers forced them up to the
occupation of shepherds, and afterwards to the
higher employments of agriculturists.* There
is, however, abundant evidence to prove that
* Wealth of Nations, book v. chap. i.

96 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

such was not the early state and progress ol
civil society. We are told of Cain, that " he
biiilded a city," Gen. iv. 17 ; and, though it
is readily granted that this name is, in Holy
Scripture, sometimes applied to a small collec-
tion of houses, and that, probably, it should be
so restricted here, yet, such residences in a
mere village or hamlet were clearly in advance
of the use of tents for human dwellings. And
not only so, but they were actually anterior in
their construction and use to the more fragile
and moveable habitations. It is declared, sub-
sequently, of Jabal, that he was " the father of
such as dwell in tents, and have cattle," Gen.
iv. 20. There is much safety in our inferring
from such a statement that the nomadic life
was introduced subsequently to the pastoral,
by men wearied with the daily and nightly
watchings of the plain, or the monotonous labour
of the field. Agrarian pursuits clearly pre-
ceded the wild and exciting sports of hunting,
as a means of support.

Tliat a division of labour, involving a prin-
ciple which lies at the foundation of all civilized
life, was understood and acted upon from the
beginning of man's history, is evident. The
first two men born of woman were devoted to
different employments. One of them, Abel,
was " a keeper of sheep ;" and the other, Cain,
was " a tiller of the ground," Gen. iv. 2. The
principle, thus early recognized, Avas unques-
tionably generally adopted and incorporated
with the arrangements for manual labour
amongst the immediately succeeding genera-

* ' OF LANGUAGE. 97

tions. While pasturage and husbandry appear
to have claimed the principal attention and toil
of the first men, they \veie not all exclusively
given to these pursuits, but followed other
branches of labour, involving, not only industry,
but skill. Cain could not have built a city,
which he called after the name of his son
Enoch, without some considerable knowledge
of more than one mechanical art. Separate
departments of artistic skill were occupied by
individuals and by classes in the earliest patri-
archal times. Thus, Tubal-Cain was distin-
guished as the " instructor," or head, of the class
who were artificers " in brass and iron," Gen.
iv. 22. This branch of art implied some
considerable intelligence, as it involved an ac-
quaintance with metallurg}^, and some know-
ledge of the methods of softening and working
the materials mentioned, and probably of other
metals too, for the gold of Havilah, found in
the vicinity of Eden, is described as being
good. There is little reason to doubt that many
of the conveniences and comforts, which could
only be appreciated or collected by persons
elevated much above a barbarous state, belonged
to society in the period we are now con-
templating. Some acquaintance with music,
beyond the rude sounds which were emitted by
the shepherd's reed, belonged at least to Jubal
and his descendants, or followers, who handled
"the harp and organ," Gen. iv. 21.

The poetic form of the recorded address
uttered by Lamech to his wives, would teach

9

98 THE OKIGIN Alv'D PROGRESS

tis that some poetic skill "was realised in these
early times. Thus we read, Gen. iv. 23,24:

" And Lamech said to his wives,
Adah and Zillah, hear n)y voice;
Wives of Lamech, hearken to my speech.
1, indeed, being wounded, have slain a man.
And being assaulted, a young man.
If Cain shall be avenged seven times,
Certainly Lamech seventy and seven."*

Whatever may have been the design of this
address, its form is highly poelicaL

That a knowledge of astronomy was added
to the arts then in use, may be inferred from
the nomadic mode of life of some tribes,
which was favourable to its cultivation, as
afterwards seen among the Chaldees, and from
the familiar references to the names of stars in
the book of Job. Some system of noting the
flight of time appears to have been in use, from
the minute accuracy of the genealogical tables
in thp book of Genesis, and from the records of
the birth, age, and death of the patriarchs, as
well as from the intimation of the year, month,
and day, in which some important events are
described as occurring.

The condition in which men dwelt, usually
in peace with each other; the scrupulous regard
enjoined upon them as to the sacred ness of
human life ; the authority of the patriarchs in
enforcing laws, whether human or Divine ; the
reference to judges sitting in the gate ; and the
deference paid by men when grown up to the
will of their parents, all indicate a state of
things in which piety and morality gave se-

* Dr. Boothroyd's version.

OF LANGUAGE. 99

curity to personal liberty and property. The
men described in the first pages of the Bible
were not brutes nor savages, but civilized
beings.

The building of the ark, at the end of the
antediluvian period, though begun and carried
on by Noah under a Divine direction, never-
theless supposed considerable knowledge and
skill on the part of the workmen engaged in its *
construction. Some superiority in mensuration
and mechanics is implied in rearing so large a
structure as the ark. Some acquaintance with
the varieties of timber is indicated in the selec-
tion of the proper kind of wood ; and some
knowledge of the properties of those bodies
which were fitted to protect the vessel from the
corrosion of the elements, and from the havoc,
of marine insects, is implied in the injunction
to " pitch it within and without with pitch,"
Gen. vi. 14.

Immediately after the miraculous preserva-
tion of a root of the human family by the
construction of the ark, we find Noah and his
sons taking possession of the new world. From
this fresh starting point mankind continued to
advance, and we distinctly trace the indications
of their civilized state. " Noah began to be a
husbandman, and he planted a vineyard," Gen.
ix. 20 ; and his three sons, by whom the
whole earth was overspread, in all probability
devoted themselves to separate callings. Their
immediate descendants, when settled in Shinar,
were acquainted with the art of making bricks,

100 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

and used them with bitumen instead of mortar,"
as they began to build a city and a tower, the
top of which, they vainly hoped, should reach
unto heaven, Gen, xi. 4.

Other glimpses of patriarchal life, after the
dispersion, are afforded us, and they are in
perfect harmony with those which we find in
the more remote periods. We see shepherds
and husbandmen, artificers and merchants,
associated together in communities and na-
tions. They do not present themselves to us
in squalid poverty and wretchedness, but as
possessing flocks and herds, and silver and
gold. We meet with allusions to the " smok-
ing furnace," and to the " burning lamp."
Mention is made of sepulchres, of shekels
current A\dth the merchant, of golden ear-rings,
and of bracelets of gold. The right to land
was recognised, and parted with for pecuniary
considerations. In the march of luxury, linen
cloth appears to have superseded such garments
as " aprons of fig-leaves," and " coats of skins,"
in which the first human pair were temporarily
arrayed. Abraham told the king of Sodom,
that he would take nothing of him, " from a
thread even to a shoe-latchet," Gen. xiv. 23.
Eebecca is said to have covered herself with a
veil," and Joseph to have had " a coat of many
colours."

It would be interesting to enlarge on the
biblical notices of the early state of man-
kind, but our present use of them is limited to
an examination of the evidence they supply to
the fact that society, as historically portrayed

OF LANGUAGE. 101

in the Scriptures, possessed, in its origin and
subsequent stages, an oral language. And when
we consider in how rude a state, compared
■with that of the patriarchs, the Mexicans and
Peruvians were found, when discovered by
Europeans, though they had belonged for some
centuries to a settled and populous community,
and yet find among them well-c%structed and
articulated languages, we see the most conclu-
sive reasons for affirming that such society as
that existing in patriarchal times could not,
unless by the intervention of a miracle, have
been formed, nor retained in the bonds which
held it, without the aid of language. Indeed,
when we remember the barbarism into which
some insulated tribes have sunk in the lapse of
time, and the slow growth of human improve-
ment under the most favouring circumstances,
it is just possible that the progenitors of our
race were not entirely left to their own inge-
nuity in the invention of useful arts in general,
but received Divine instruction, of a peculiar
kind, in the use of the powers with which they
were favoured. The world is much more
indebted to the church for its means of comfort
and usefulness than it is ready to acknowledge ;
and we incline to the opinion, that even our
literature owes much more to the Hebrews
than it does to the Egyptians, though a con-
trary notion has been entertained by many.

102 THE OKIGIN AND PROGRESS

CHAPTEIi VI.

The theory of jraysical spontaneous development held by
some advocates of invented language — Statements and
estimate of this philosophy— No actual case illustrative of
the theory— Impassable gulf between man and the inferior
creatures — Geneial results arrived at in the argument —
Steps by which it has been reached — Language is
Divine in its origin — Explanations — Character of
the primitive lan<ruage— Review of the several arguments
for this theoiy — Consistency of the conclusion with the

. reasons and facts of the case— Its harmony with revelation.

The advocates of the liuman invention of
language adopt, as we have seen, a theory
concerning the history of our race, at once
untenable and absurd ; but the more offensive
and impious conclusions of the theory have not
yet been glanced at. It is, indeed, little more
than a revival of the Epicurean atheism,
•which held the fortuitous concurrence of atoms
to be the cause of the existence of all organized
beings. This extravagant creed of infidelity
may be traced up to Moschus and Democritus.
It was presented to the world, with some
modifications, by La Marck, in his System of
Appetencies, and has recently been put forth
in an English dress, under the attractive form
of a new theory of animal development.

This wretched philosophy teaches that elec-
tricity, or some similar power — hoAv derived and
obtained is not said — produced the monad, the

OF LANGUAGE. 103

humblest form of organic structure ; that nature,
having made a start, proceeded progressively
to perfect her work ; that monads in time
Avorked their -way up to monkeys ; and that
monkeys, in like manner advancing, became at
length the parents of men. These, as they
■were formed into families, from their natural
appetencies to speak, gradually invented lan-
guage ; and, having so far advanced, their
descendants are moving on to some yet higher
form of earthly being.

It is pretended that the gradual steps of this
development are in conformity with a principle
at work in the entire animate creation. It is
said, though without the shadow of proof, that
the insect, desiring to improve its condition,
gave birth to marine tribes. Some of these,
forming the desire to walk, became quadru-
peds; and others, under an appetency to fly,
became birds. Quadrupeds, as they herded
together, became men. Such is the philosophy
that repudiates faith, rejects revelation, and
attempts to annihilate human responsibility !

This miserable theory is alike an insult to
the dignity of human nature, and to the
wisdom of our heavenly Father. That we
have not exaggerated its wicked absurdities,
or dealt unfairly with the infidel advocates of
the invention of language, in charging its folly
upon them, is evident from the following repre-
sentations of Lord Monboddo. After endea-
vouring to identify man with the hare, the
beaver, and the sea-cat, he says : " It is unne-
cessary to give more examples from the brute

104 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

creation, since it appears to me that our oivn
species furnishes sufficient for my purpose.
There are the ourang-outangs, who are proved
to be of our species, by marks of humanity
that, I think, are incontestible ; and they have
one property more of the species than the
quadruped savages above mentioned, that they
walk erect. They Hve in society, and build
huts ; but have not yet attained the use of
speech."*

In terms of triumph — which we do not choose
to transfer to our page — this grave and learned
judge appears to glory in his assumed dis-
covery, that men and monkeys are of the same
species. It is truly pitiable to see a human
being of rank and learning attempting to
render his race the butt of low conceit and
iiend-like banter. The singular and awkward
reasonings, by which this attempt to degrade
our nature is bolstered up, present few points
of argument, and these require but little for
their refutation. The anatomical argument
for identifying man with brutes is admitted
to be a failure by all well-instructed physiolo-
gists ; it is not a mere pectoral or partial
conformity that must consign man to a level
with brute beasts. It would only be philo-
sophical to demonstrate an analogy in limbs
and features, in trunk and extremity, before
human beings are treated as mere animals.
Till this has been done, let the gratuitous
reckless assertions of those who affirm that
perpendicular attitude and motion are inven-
* On Language, vol. i. p. 289.

OF LANGUAGE. 105

tions, receive tlie just condemnation of all
candid minds.

No case illustrative of spontaneous develop-
ment, or of the assumed appetency for improve-
ment, has shown itself during the long period
of recorded observation. Of all the men who
have chronicled prodigies, from Pliny down-
wards, not one affirms that he saw the lower
animal rising into the higher, or detected the
animal emerging into the man. Egypt has
preserved, in the mummies of its animals, a
^museum of natural history, which presents to
us, at the distance of three thousand years,
every species then as now. Amiidst all the
strivimi-s of man after new resources and new
powers, there has not been, from age to age,
the development of any additional organ or
faculty, nor the opening of a new channel of
perception. And this stationary formation
harmonizes with the general law under which
created beings are placed. " The bee has been
striving without intermission in the art of
making its sweet confection since the days of
Aristotle ; the ant has been constructing its
labyrinths since Solomon recommended its
example ; but, from the time they were
described by the philosopher and the sage, till
the beautiful researches of tha Hubers, they
have not acquired a new perception, or a new
organ for these purposes."*

These facts tell, with irresistible power, against

* Dr. "Wiseman's Lectures on the Connexion between Science
and Revealed Religion

106 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

the puerile and debasing notions of the ancient
Theogonie^, and against all the confident de-
clamations of the modern pantheistic schools,
and may serve to assure us that no cycles of
time, even if they amounted to countless years,
would suffice to raise irrational brutes to the
dignity of rational and immortal man.

The fact unquestionably is, that a gulf,
never to be passed, divides the human race
from all the inferior creatures by whom we are
surrounded. The superiority of man consists
in the possession of a social and immortal
nature, and of a capacity for indefinite im-
provement. " He is, in short, a man in every
condition ; and we can learn nothing of his
nature from the analogy of other animals. In
his rudest state he is found to be above them ;
and in his greatest degeneracy never descends
to their level. With him the society appears
to be as old as the individual, and the use of
the tongue as universal as that of the hand or
the foot. If there was a time in which he had
his acquaintance with his own species to make,
and his faculties to acquire, it is a time of
which we have no record.''* But our acquaint-
ance with him, as we have seen, goes back to
the period of his creation ; and in every age
we meet him ^& a man and a brother.

Having thus opened up and examined, at
some length, and with considerable care, the
several questions involved in a full inquiry into
the origin of language, and having, by a course
of inductive investigation, proved that the
* Ferguson on the History of Civil Society.

OF LANGUAGE. 107

theory of its invention is unfounded and
false, we are now in a position, without any
great risk of the charge of presumption, to
reiterate our frequent statements made at the
several stages of our reasoning, and to affirm,
in the most unliesitating manner, that the
faculty of sppech, and the origin of language,
are alike the gifts of God. He appears to have
created Adam with the capacity of speaking,
and to have given him the desire to communi-
cate the ideas he received through the medium
of his senses. In addition to this, the benevo-
lent Creator appears to have imparted a know-
ledge of the elements of language with the
being of man ; and to have presented to him at
once, in the opportunity of naming the animals,
a suitable range of subjects on which to em-
ploy his newly-created powers. We may con-
clude that Eve- possessed the like capacity of
language, when created, with at least an
equally strong desire to use it. Their mutual
converse, worthy of their position and destiny,
would immediately call into exercise a copious
vocabulary. The scope of their language would
be enlarged with their daily experience and
observation. In process of time they would,
both of them, instruct their children in the use
of speech ; and thus, naturally and obviously,
would begin and spread the first language of
the world.

We do not intend, by the avowal of this
theorv, to maintain that God put into the
mouth of Adam the very words he should
employ on all ordinary occasions ; and that in

108 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

this absolute and nnqualified sense he thus
Divinely created the language of Paradise, but
that he instructed him to use aright his
powers of mind and of tongue. Nor do we
mean to affirm that the whole copia verhorum
of the primitive speech was immediately in-
vented. The framework of language would be
at once perfectly constructed, and rendered
capable of whatever service should be demanded
from it for the immediate use of mankind.
Their language was fully adequate to their
wants, and exquisitely adapted to their unso-
phisticated and happy life. Its foundations
being Divinely laid, the additions afterwards
required could easily be made by human minds.
Thus, language would at once become what it
usually is, the measure of human knowledge,
and the external index of social attainment.

We have no means of positively determining
the degree of perfection which pertained to the
primitive tongue. As, however, the original
knowledge of man must have been sufficient for
all the purposes of a pure and blessed existence,
and as the principle of a progressive develop-
ment entered into the constitution of his intel-
lectual natiu^e, his language Avould not only be
sufficient for his primitive state, but would
expand and adapt itself to the measure of his
advancing intelligence. It w^ould keep pace
with the growth of invention, and Avith the
general cultivation of his mind and heart ;
while it would pow^erfully aid the improvement
of his mental endowments, and be a chief in-
strument of his great and rapid strides in

OF LANGUAGE. 109

general attainments. Thus it would be en-
riched and adorned, from time to time, by
numerous additions. From being, in its
earliest age, the child of necessity, it would
become the parent of ornament. From merely
denoting the perceptions of sense, it would ad-
vance to represent, by appropriate terms, the
instruments and operations of art, the flights ot
imagination, the deductions of reason, and the
results of observation and experience. New
objects and new Avants would continually ren-
der new signs and symbols indispensable ; and
these were so numerous as soon to call into
existence a varied and extensive vocabu-
lary.

We are not to imagine that this primitive
language was a mere collection of words, with-
out much regard to mutual relations and gram-
matical structure. Oral language, of every
kind, must consist, under one form or other, ot
five parts of speech. For example, it must
include the signs of things, which we call
nouns ; of actions, which we call verbs ; of
attributes, which we call adjectives, or ad-
verbs ; of the relations of some things to others,
Avhich we call prepositions ; and of the natural
expression of emotions, which we term inter-
jections. Such principles did, unquestionably,
enter into the structure of this Divine language,
wliich became, in after times, a model on Avhich
all existing tongues are formed. This language:
of Paradise was the mother of them all ; it
prevailed through the eight extended gene-
rations of the patriarchs, during which. "the
10

110 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

whole earth was of one language, and of one
speech," Gen. xi. 1.

Language thus appears to us originally to
liave assumed the form that it would have done,
if it could have been developed by man, in a
long course of experience, to meet the wants of
his civilized condition. It was completely in
harmony with the laws of human conscious-
ness, and exactly fitted to give them utterance,
80 that the point in reference to language at
which God set down man, was precisely the
point which man would have reached, at a
corresponding stage of the advancement of his
nature, if he had possessed the power of
developing both that nature from its dormant
faculties, and his language from its mere
elements.

This view of the origin of language we
regard as a simple and satisfactory solution of
the subject, so far as its extensive bearings
have hitherto occupied our attention ; and it is
one that commends itself to acceptance by a
variety of considerations. It agrees with the
purest traditions and with the noblest senti-
ments and opinions of the most ancient nations,
and it harmonizes with the reasonable expecta-
tions suggested by enlightened views of the
character and government of God. More than
..all this, it is entitled to favour from those who
submit to the authority of revealed truth, by
the fact, that it is in perfect conformity with
the authentic and interesting statements of the
sacred Scriptures concerning the creation of
the human race and their early history, wlio

OF LANGUAGE. Ill

could not have existed in the state there de-
scribed, "without the use of speech.

Our argument for the Divine origin of lan-
guage— understanding this phrase in the light
of those definitions and restrictions we have
appended to it — has been intentionally inter-
woven with a statement and refutation of the
dogmatic assertions by which it has been
sought to establish the opposite theory. In
reality, there can be but two opinions on the
subject. Language is of Divine origin, or of
human invention. Now, if the last-mentioned
theory be overthrown, the first is easily, if not of
necessity, established. In each of our advanc-
ing and substantiated objections, some proof in
favour of our own position has been seciu-ed ;
and the cumulative evidence is conclusive, that
language is from the Creator and not from the
creature.

The bearing and force of these arguments,
blended as they have been with the positive
conclusions derived from the Scriptures and
from other sources, may thus be summed up
and exhibited to view. If it be the case, as
we have proved, that no period for the sup-
posed invention of language can be assigned,
and that no traces, either historical or tra-
ditional, of its inventor or inventors can be
found, then the inference is by no means an
unreasonable one, that the faculty and use of
speech are coeval with the existence of the
human family. Our establishment of the
position, that men are unable, under any cir-
cumstances, to invent language — as the previous

112 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

knowledge of it must have been required for
the construction of the most simple language
of the least instructed tribes — strengthens and
advances the argument for the Divinity of its
origin. In the absence of all proof that
savages ever did, or could, invent speech, and
with the demonstration of the physical impos-
sibility of their doing it, w^e are conducted,
with inevitable precision, to the conclusion,
that it was an original endowment of our na-
ture. If, upon all the evidence derived from
just views of the character and government of
God, and of the nature and destiny of man,
from observation, and from the history of the
world, it appears that the savage state was not
natural to the human race ; and that, though
some tribes have fallen into it, none have ever,
by their own unaided powers, emerged from it ;
then it follows that, from the beginning, man
was made a speaking as well as a thinking
being ; and that necessarily, and from design,
because he was a social a.nd civilized creature.
If the gratuitous assumptions of spontaneous
development be so triumphantly annihilated as
to prove that man is identical with himself in
every age and clime, always a rational and
accountable being, then it follows that oral
language is not an accidental, but an indis-
pensable attendant of his earthly condition.
His tongue is an important member of his
frame, and the use of it was taught him by his
Maker.

And these inferences and conclusions are
not merely unopposed by Scripture testimony.

i

OF LANGUAGE. 113

To say this only of them would not be to state
their real character. Nor is it enough to add
that there is no apparent collision between
them and it ; for they are established by all
the incidental notices and positive statements of
the Bible, which can be brought to bear upon
the entire subject. All the representations it
affords of the mental and religious condition of
man, at the period of his creation, justify our
conclusion, that oral language was indispen-
sable for the ends of his existence. Its state-
ments of domestic life, as they refer to the first
liuman pair in Paradise and after their expul-
sion, exhibit them conversing with God and
with each other ; and prove that Adam, imme-
diately upon his formation, was directed to the
suitable employment of the wondrous faculty
of speech. The lives of the earliest patriarchs,
embodjdng exercises of oral devotion, and of
intercourse with their families and neigh-
bours, represent them as maintaining these
acts by the use of that one language, spoken
first in Paradise, and afterwards through the
district known in the early Scriptures as the
East.

Now, forasmuch as arguments are to be
judged of less by their number and variety,
than by their cogency and adaptation to the
case in hand, we venture to deem our proofs
conclusive and unassailable in their general
testimony, whatever may be thought of any
particular proof or mode of illustration. The
various lines of thought over which we have
travelled have all converged to one point, and
10*

114 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

landed us, necessarily, on the one great con-
clusion, that man was originally indebted to his
Maker, not only for the organs of speech, but
also for a knowledge of the fact that he pos-
sessed them, and for the inclination and power
to employ them. This conclusion appears to
us to be as reasonable as it is scriptural, and
to furnish the only view that is truly worthy of
the origin of a faculty which has diffused so
widely and constantly, through all the branches
of the human family, the varied and unnum-
bered blessings of which it is the appointed
channel.

This interesting subject, in its multiform
shapes, and contemplated from the numerous
points of observation from which it has been
surveyed, presents to us one uniform aspect
and result. Whether regarded through the
medium of history or testimony, of observation
or a sound philosophy, whether looked at in
the light of experience or of Scripture declara-
tion, it shuts us up to the conclusion that lan-
guage is not a human invention, but a Divine
gift, and is, like reason itself, the boon of the
infinitely wise and benevolent Creator to his
most favoured earthly creature — Man,

OF LANGUAGE. 115

CHAPTER VII.

One common language in the early patriarchal times-
Advantages which would have resulted from its perpe-
tuation— Evils and benefits of a variety of existing
languages— Objection to the Divine origin of language
arising out of the present diversity, stated and met —
The unity of the human race — Declared in the Old
Testament, and recognised in the New— Illustrated by
modern physiological researches— The unity of language
hence inferred— Verbal affinities and grammatical resem-
blances in all tongues— Classification of languages — Family
grouj)s — Indo-Gennanic— Semitic — INIalayian — African —
American — Inferences from the ascertained present state
of language.

During the lengthened period of human history
which connected thu career of Adam with that
of Noah, the inhabitants of the whole earth
spoke one language. No direct Divine inter-
ference was requisite to maintain this unity.
Many natural circumstances would concur to
prevent any considerable deviations from the
primitive speech. It would be held in reverence
by the whole human family ; the more pious
part of the community sacredly using it as the
gift of God, and the entire race valuing
it as a boon derived from their common pa-
rents, to whom every descendant was deeply
indebted. Wherever any portions of this family
wandered, they would cherish its recollection,
and preserve it in use, not only for immediate
intercourse with their present companions, but

116 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

as the means of future communication with the
brotherhood from whom they had departed,
and to whom it might be hoped they, or their
children, would be restored. The limited ex-
tent of country which it is probable the ante-
diluvians covered would allow of such frequent
intercommunion as to make all advancement in
the polish of language, or in the multiplication
of words, accessible to the entire speaking popu-
lation of the earth. The extreme length of.
human life in the patriarchal ages would be
highly favourable to the fixed and universal
character which the primitive language retained
till after the flood. At the same time, there
could be no temptation to any portion of the
race, from the prevalence of other forms of
speech around, to break down, or change, or for-
sake the tongue in which they were born. There
is much reason to believe that, on the whole,
considerable advantage Avould have resulted to
the human family if the primitive language had
been preserved intact, and had prevailed in its
unity from age to age, as successive generations
multiplied and extended themselves over the
surface of the earth. It would have proved a
bond of universal brotherhood, to cement so-
ciety in its various and dissimilar parts.

It is evident that the division of tongues has
created mournfully strong and lasting pre-
judices and antipathies amongst men. Nations
have been alienated from each other as much
by difference of speech as by diversities of
politics, or of religion. There is a mental, if
not a moral, deformity, falsely enough attached

OF LANGUAGE. 117

by many persons to those wlio are nnable to
speak the language of our country. The man
•who cannot do it is an ahen to us, and we are
instantly alienated from him. A strong dislike
to a foreigner may frequently be detected in
children, and in the unlettered rustic who
knows no other language than his oAvn, and
who has never visited a land in which other
languages are spoken. Unreasonable jealousies,
as a consequence, are engendered, and strong
national prejudices have been thrown up and
perpetuated. These have interfered with the
commercial intercourse of nations, who have
deliberately regarded each other as natural
enemies, have led to paltry acts of oppression
and tyranny, to neglect of the exile, and cruelty
to the stranger cast on a foreign shore. The
prejudices thus created have served to perpe-
tuate the existence of partial and unjust laws ;
and have, moreover, originated many of the
unrighteous and exterminating wars, whose
hateful progress may be tracked by desolated
countries stained with human blood.

The diversities of speech prevalent amongst
men have interfered with the diffusion of those
benefits of civilisation enjoyed by some highly
favoured nations, to the more destitute and
degraded sister nations of the earth. The
efforts of the Christian church to evangelize
the heathen world have been seriously retarded
by the obstacles thus supplied. The missionary
of the cross, charged with his message of mercy
to the guilty and the wretched, has been im-
peded on the very threshold of his benevolent

118 THE ORIGIN AND PKOGRESS

embass}^ by the long and laborious exercises,

whicli were necessary to enable him to speak,

in intelligible terms, the simplest portion of the

glad tidings he was sent to communicate. And

even after he has become, to a good extent,

familiar with the language of his adoption, his

imperfect acquaintance with its idioms, and

his faulty pronunciation of its terms, have

greatly diminished the efficiency of his public

ministrations. This disadvantage is so keenly

felt by the promoters of Christian missions, that

the ln)pe of the church for the salvation of the

more erudite heathen nations of the world is now

placed greatly on the agency of a well-trained

band of native teachers and preachers, who

may speak in their own tongue, in which they

were born, " the wonderful works of God." It

was when an infuriated Jewish mob, thirsting

for the blood of the apostle Paul, heard him

speak to them in the Hebrew tongue, that they

kept profound silence ; and so, when men, fired

with the love of Christ, shall speak to their

fellow-countrymen the words of the truth of

the gospel, we may expect that these words,

through Divine grace, will calm the mind,

subdue the passions, and change the hearts

of multitudes now living without hope in the

world.

From these considerations we may conclude
that the disadvantages resulting from a diver-
sity of languages are very great ; but the evil is
not an unmixed one. That some good has been
educed from it by the superintending provi-
dence of God, who, by his course of benevolent

OF LANGUAGE. 119

operation, is reversing every malediction, is
evident on the most superficial view of all the
workings of this calamity. Its existence has
proved a barrier to the licentiousness and
■wickedness of mankind. It has been a check
to the ravages of superstition and idolatry ; and
but for its influence some of the gigantic forms
of error, which, at different periods, have flour-
ished in the earth, might have become universal,
and all but immutable. It has presented a
limitation to the subjugation of nations to great
tyrannies, which have sprung up and widely
extended their dominions. The Roman empire
made an attempt to destroy the nationalism
of society, and to establish a universal despot-
ism, by the means of the enforced adoption of
its language, but happily failed in its endea-
vours to exterminate other tongues. Subse-
sequently, the Koman church, panting, like
pagan Rome, for universal conquest, and, like
it, reckless of the means employed for this end,
laboured with untiring zeal and energy to
annihilate the geutilism of society, by the im-
position of its faith, through the medium of
the Latin language ; but this purpose, in like
manner, has been frustrated, so far as it em-
braces universality.

Much of the disadvantage resulting to the
Christian church from the diversified tonofues
of earth has been surmounted, or even sub-
ordinated to the fulfilment of its hallowed
designs. In the first age of Christianity, the
gift of tongues possessed by the apostles and
other ministers and members of the church

120 THE OKIGIN AND PROGRESS

furnished the most indubitable evidence of the
Divine character of the gospel, and facilitated
its rapid introduction to all the nations of the
then known world. " Tongues were for a sign
to them that believed not," and a means of
subduing them to the faith of Christ. And in
modern times eminent Christian scholars have
succeeded in translating the sacred Scriptures
into the principal languages of the earth. That
noble institution, the British and Foreign Bible
Society, has been the honoured instrument of
aiding the printing of the word of God in no
less than one hundred and thirty-eight lan-
guages and dialects spoken amongst men ; while
the American and other Bible societies have
increased the number of versions, in languages
not comprehended in this enumeration. The
way is thus preparing for the final contest of
the religion of truth and love, with the sin and
superstition of the world, in which it wall be
triumphant. Christianity is the only religion
adapted to become universal, and the only one
that has toiled extensively to propagate itself,
by the diffusion of its writings, in all the lan-
guages of the earth.

Nor are these the only advantages that have
been realized by mankind from a diversity of
languages ; for, in the development of different
forms of speech, different modes of thought,
different attributes of mind, different tastes and
talents are cultivated, which, taken together,
make the human family more accomplished
than it could have been by the use of one
universal language only. This division is to

OF LANGUAGE. 121

thought, what the division of labour is to
mechanics, as it perfects the art of thinking.
Some languages, like the German, are best
adapted for metaphysical analysis ; others, like
the French, are fit for familiar intercourse ; and
others, like the English, are best suited for the
general enterprise of active life. The ardent
pursuit of individual nations, in what appears
to be their peculiar callings, modifies the cha-
racter and tastes of other communities, who do
homage to their talents in their several depart-
ments of thouijht and activitv.

The power of a language in forming cha-
racter, and influencing opinion, must be evident
to all who have studied the subject. Its advan-
tageous influence on opinion may be traced in
its happy etymologies, and in its affluence and
precision of words. " Some virtues are more
sedulously cultivated by moralists when the
languaG-e has fit names for indicatino; them ;
whereas they are but superficially treated of,
or rather neglected, in nations where such
virtues have not so much as a name. Lan-
guages may obviously do injury to morals and
religion by their equivocation ; by false acces-
sories, inseparable from the principal idea ; and
by their poverty. There is an illustration of
this last-named evil influence in the Ethiop-
ians, who, having but one word both for person
and for nature, could not comprehend the doc-
trine of the union of Christ's two natures in
one single person. Among the Greeks and
Romans, the Deity had no particular identical
name ; and to this may, probably, be imputed
11

122 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

the badness of their philosophy, and their
defective notions in everything relating to theo-
logy."*

The study of comparative languages has not
only been beneficial as a discipline of mind to
individuals, leading them to form habits of
patient inquiry, and inducing a diligent pursuit
of general knowledge, but it has frequently
led, incidentally, to such researches in other
departments of human and sacred learning, as
have conferred important benefits upon society
at large. 'I'hus it is remarked, in reference to
the learned philological labours of Leibnitz,
that *' he struck out a new and unexpected
light to guide his successors through the seem-
ingly hopeless, darkness of remote ages. This
light is the study of etymology, and of the
affinities of different tongues in their primitive
roots ; a light, at first faint and glimmering, but
which, since his time, has continued to increase
in brightness. It is pleasing to see his curiosity
on this subject expand from the names of towns,
and rivers, and mountains, in his own neigh-
bourhood, till it reached to China, and other
regions in the east ; leading him to some
general conclusions concerning the origin of the
different tribes of our species, approximating
very neaily to those which have been since
drawn iioni a much more extensive range of

* See Biblical Review, vol. ii. p. 370; where may be found
an able article by the learned J. D. Michaelis, on " the
Mutual Influence of Language and ()>)inion," which obtained
a prize from the Royal Sociely of Uerlin.

OF LANGUAGE. 123

data, by Sir "William Jones, and other philo-
sophers of the same school." *

Thus we find, in this arrangement, as, in
everything else that belongs to the Divine
government of the world, the working of the
great law of compensation. One thing is set
over against another. Events, which in them-
selves were most disastrous, and which threat-
ened only the entailment of calamity, have
been so counteracted or modified by the Divine
benevolence, as to afford light mingled with
djirkness, and to present the mountain tops of
joy in the vicinity of the regions of depression
and gloom. So fully has this happened with
the infliction of a judgment of confusion on the
speech of men, as to render it now an open
question, whether the good that has flowed
from it eventually has not, in some good de-
gree, approached to its counteraction.

An objection to the Divine origin of language,
arising, out of its extensive diversity, has been
frequently urged, and urged with some plausi-
bility, but with little force, because those who
have advanced it have thoughtlessly or wil-
fully chosen to overlook those historical facts
and circumstances which completely meet it.
Nevertheless, to this objection we must now
look, as it presents itself to our notice while
tracing the progress of language. It has thus,
in substance, been stated: — If the first lan-
guage was communicated by inspiration, it

* Professor Playfair. Dissertations of the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, vol. i. 4to., pp. 262, 263.

124 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

must have been perfect, and would, conse-
quently, be held in great reverence by all the
human family, and be thus preserved from
the ravages of time. But great varieties of
language prevail. They are noAv to be
counted not by tens, nor by hundreds, but by
thousands. Some existing ones are obviously
imperfect, and there is reason to believe that
others are utterly lost. These things are
deemed by the objectors fatal to the truth of
the Divine origin of language. To meet the
difficulties involved in the invention of maiiy
languages, they boldly affirm that the races of
men were as distinct in their origin as are the
languages they now speak, and refer, in proof
of their opinion, to the varieties of colour and
physical conformation which mark diiFerent
tribes, and assume that these can only be
adequately accounted for by admitting that the
human race did not descend from a single pair,
but were created at different times and places,
or started up in the various parts of the earth
in which we now find them.

The principal, but insufficient support to
this absurd opinion is derived from the old
polytheistic systems, the genius of which was
local and national. Each heathen nation had
its own god, and was identified with its tutelary
divinities. They knew nothing of the unity of
the race as an historic fact. In the ebb and
flow of empires, they perceived no law of unity;
and, in the natural division of nations, they
saw no arrangement of Divine Providence for
the comfort and advantage of the great family

OF LANGUAGE. 125

of man. They recognised the unity of a tribe,
but had no feeling, no conception of universal
humanity. If they had enjoyed access to the
Hebrew Scriptures, they might have been
taught the unity of the race ; for these writings
recognised the common relation of man to man,
however diversified in language, colour, or
physiological peculiarities. The Old Testament
narrative described the settlement of the nations,
and the foundation of empires, in the descend-
ants of Noah. It anticipated the coming of a
Messiah, in whom " all the families of the earth" "
should be blessed. It exhibited Abraham
called in uncircumcision, that he might be the
father of all who believe in Jesus Christ, whether
Jew or Gentile. It unfolded the character of
Jehovah as " the God of the whole earth," pro-
claimed the utterance of his condescending love,
" All souls are mine," and declared that unto
him, as to the God hearing prayer, all flesh
should come.

When Christianity descended from heaven,
it announced, in the song of angels, the sublime
end of its mission: " Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace, good will toward men." As a
dispensation of mercy, it was exquisitely adapted
to the wants and woes of every human being,
and went forth to bless all the tribes of earth.
It recognised the universal brotherhood of man-
kind, by its precept to " Honour all men." By
the expansiveness of its benevolence it forbade
the most privileged to call any man " common"
or unclean. It taught that " in every nation he
that feareth" God " and worketh righteousness
11*

126 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

is accepted " of the universal Parent, the
Father Avho is in heaven. When the apostle
Paul stood amongst the Athenians and asserted
the unity 'of the race, he announced a fact
alike new to the philosophers and to the multi-
tude, that God " hath made of one blood all
nations of men for to dwell on all the face of
the earth, and hath determined .... the bounds
of their habitation," Acts xvii. 26. This great
truth Avas recognised as lying at the basis of all
the early Christian churches, which sprang up
in Judaea, Galatia, Asia Minor, and the isles of
the Mediterranean. An equality of privilege
was claimed for believers in the Son of God.
The distinctions of Jew and Greek, barbariau
and Scythian, bond and free, male and female,
were all merged iu the relationship which each
sustained to the Father of spirits, and to Jesus
Christ, " by whom the whole family in heaven
and earth is named."

The researches of modern physiologists have
tended invariably to the illustration of this Scrip-
ture truth. By the collection of many interesting
facts relative to the human race in various
conditions. Dr. Prichard proves that the whole
human family was derived from one stock.
If the unity of the race is not to be made
out genealogically, because profane history does
not ascend so high as to meet the historical
narrative of Moses, in reference to Gentile na-
tions, he demonstrates that unity by the fact, that
it is essential to the nature of man. Agreeing
with Buffon and Cuvier, to define species as " a
constant succession of individuals capable of

OF LANGUAGE. 127

reproducing eacli other,"* he goes on to prove
that there is a law, prevaiUng alike in the
vegetable and animal creation, which renders
the perpetuation of hybrids, so as to produce
new and intermediate species, impossible. The
facts adduced lead, with the strongest force
of analogical reasoning, to the conclusion that,
as the various tribes of men may, by inter-
marriage, perpetuate their race, they belong to
the same species. f Additional light is thrown
on the subject by his careful analysis of collected
evidence on the nature and origination of varie-
ties. He appears to us to have solved all the
elements of the problem by a course of patient
and impartial induction. The great question
is. Could such various nations and tribes, as
are now existing amongst men, have all sprung
from one stock ? In answer to this he proves,
by an appeal to facts, that sporadic or acci-
dental varieties may arise in one race, tending
to produce in it the characteristics of another ;
that these varieties may be perpetuated ; and
that food, climate, employment, and other se-
condary causes, account for the existing varie-
ties of the human race, and for the perpetuation
of these peculiarities.

This conclusion, in harmony with ascertained
fact, commends itself to our judgment by its sim-
plicity and sufBciency. " It is superfluous to do
by many means what may be done by fewer.
This is an axiom received into courts of judica-

* " La succession des individus qui se reproduissent et se
perp^tuent," Buff. " His. Nat." Cuv. " Regne Animal."
t " Natural History of Man," sections iv. and v.

128 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

ture from the schools of philosophers. ' "We
must not, therefore,' says our great Newton,
' admit more causes of natural things than
those which are true, and sufficiently account
for natural phenomena.' But it is true that
one pair, at least, of every living species, must,
at first, have been created; and that one human
pair was sufficient for the population of our
globe in a period of no considerable length, is
evident from the rapid increase of numbers in
geometrical progression."*

A French analogical philosopher maintains,
absurdly enough, that there were twelve original
families of men. He has, however, no better
reason for his bold assertion than this, that, in
the chromatic scale of music there are twelve
notes ; that there are twelve signs in the Zodiac ;
and that there were twelve tribes in the house
of Israel, representatives of the human family.
But the twelve signs are unitized by one sun ;
the twelve notes originate in the unity of sound ;
and the twelve tribes all descended from one
father — whose name they bore. Unity is the
true principle of commencement, and from it
varieties proceed.

The unity of all the human race, once ad-
mitted, goes far to demonstrate the unity of
original language ; because the inference is
just, that, as all the varieties of men descended
from one common pair, so our diversified lan-
guages originated in theirs. The verbal affini-
ties and grammatical structure of existing
languages strikingly indicate the fact that they
* Sir William Jones's Works, vol. iii. p. 187.

OF LANGUAGE. 129

all bear a common relation to one primitive
source; such affinities are sought in words,
which are regarded as the material of all lan-
guage ; and in grammar, which is looked upon —
not as the moulding or fashioning of this mate-
rial, but — as an essential element in the compo-
sition of language. If there be danger, while
tracing out mere verbal affinities, of being con-
ducted into a region of fiincy rather than of
facts, as unquestionably there is, this danger is
readily avoided by adopting the safe and satis-
factory principles of procedure which have been
laid down by modern j^hilologists on the sub-
ject.

In reference to verbal affinities, Dr. Wiseman
has thus enunciated the rule : " Not to take
words belonging to one or two languages in
different famihes, and from their resemblance,
which may be accidental or communicated,
draw inferences referable to the entire families
to which they respectively belong, but to com-
pare words of simple import and primary
necessity, which run through the entire fami-
lies, and consequently are aboriginal therein."
Mr. Sharon Turner* applied this principle in
tracing a common relation between all the
great groups of families of language, so as to
demonstrate their connexion with a primitive
language, with considerable success. Begin-
ning with the numerals of nations, he shows
that they are, in a vast majority of cases, com-

* in the published Transactions of the Royal Society ot
Literature, vol. i.

130 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

binations of simpler terms, used also for nume-
rals by other nations, not in immediate con-
tiguity, and who, in other respects than those,
appear to have no visible relationship. In
several hundred cases he brings illustrations of
analogy in the terms by which the numbers
one and two are expressed by various nations,
with a view to show that they are described by
simple sounds of one syllable ; or which are
resolvable into these simple elements, and,
most probably, were always made from them.
Thus the sounds e, z, ?/, used by the Chinese
for one^ are traced in various combinations with
each other, or with the addition of certain con-
sonants, in a multitude of tongues. So with
the number two; and especially in the very
extensive uce of the form duo, which is identical
with it, and is familiarized to us in the well-
known Greek and Latin terms. Upwards of
seventy languages are cited, in which that form
of expressing this numeral is used. Illustra-
tions of the analogy, equally remarkable, are
furnished in several of the higher numbers.
We subjoin a table of numerals, in which the
resemblance is striking, placing the English
near the centre, so that the eye may readily
trace the conformity in the languages ranged
on each side of it.

OF LANGUAGE.

ISl

p. u

s ^ ^

k.

a)

C

3
•a

d

1
0;

6D
"5

f,

'S

'S

cS

-3

■^

^

^

M

■X

o

c

•c

2

<u

"55

CO

C

> >

CJ

-s

s

CO

09

St

3

"S

•a -3

,s

,c

el

Ol

f*

o

^->^

*->

w

p.

tfl

w

O

"O

"O.,

,c

t/1

S

c

f>

§

X

>

^

o

^

«c

^

<1)

(O

(O

e]

C

v»

a o ^.

•r- o ,a

5 B

.« *- ^

flj V

^

Ol

C

4->

tc

«

o

3

«

X

a>

fn

3

e

c

fe

^

O

a>

0)

td

lO

to

■»->

V<

0)

d

O

3

s

a,

B

s

«
^

3
c

o

3

«0

4>

3

's

i;l

o

>
2

4)

U

o

s

•a

O*

c

<o

to

o

c

•O

^

V

J3

Ss

Ol

d

04

eS

«

<« S

a>

u

o

o;

f w

J^

■«

a,

c

^

O

a>

3

c^

4^

CD

<u

^

a

V

^

■a

♦-

o.

^

^

o

4>

•a

c

^

e3

C3

.a

^^

^

•a

•?

no

a

'cio

-a

,a

^

o

to

<u

OJ

3

«

>>

T3

ua

o

P.

ja

,c

C

•a

c

(O

a

3

2
"o

so

S

C

OS

at

«

^

.s

<«

St

S3

5*

^

03

tn

a

'"^

w

p.

'so

lO

a

^

•a

132 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

In some of these cardinal numbers a strikina;
resemblance will be found, as in the numbers
two, three, six, and nine ; while in the whole
there may be traced a remarkable conformity.
Professor Bopp observes, in explanation of
some exceptions, " In the designation of the
number one, great diiference prevails among
the Indo-European languages, which springs
from this, thai> the number is expressed by
pronouns of the third person, whose original
abundance affords satisfactory explanation re-
garding the multiplicity of expressions for
one."*

The apparent discrepancies of the table are
fully removed when, in addition to this, it is
considered that letters of the same class, and
pronounced by the same organs, are inter-
changed readily one with the other. The trans-
formations that thus occur between the English,
German, and other languages, are very numer-
ous. As an illustration of our meaning, we
observe that the Sanscrit word for the numeral
ten, dasha, and the German word for the same
number, zeheii, have but one letter in common ;
and yet no doubt need be entertained respecting
their identity, when it is shown that the d, in
Sanscrit, constantly corresponds to z, in Ger-
man; and that the palatal s, of the Sanscrit,
corresponds to the German h.

Mr. Turner, in pursuit of his interest ■

ing object, undertook an extensive inquiry,

with a view to ascertain whether the words

used in different and remote languages of the

• Comparative Grammar, p. 416.

OF LANGUAGE. loJ

world to express the first, the clearest, nnd the
most universal relations of human life, would be
found to confirm or to overthrow the conclusion
suggested, as the result of previous investi-
gations, in the department of cardinal numbers.
In the course of his researches he collected
three hundred and fifty- nine words, which have '
been used in as many different languages or
dialects to express the idea of mother. These
words, while susceptible of some very remark-
able arrangements and classifications, were
found, in the great majority of instances, to
fall, naturally, within two large classes ; the
one, in which the letter m is the governing
sound, as in ma, mamma, matar (Sanscrit ;)
and the other in which the letter n prevailed,
as in na, nae, etc. In like manner he found
the i^lea of father expressed generally by da,
pa, papa, and words of similar construction.
The analogies in Avords expressive of other
common relations of life he traced out with
equal clearness, in terms conforming more or
less closely to the Sanscrit words hhrdtar, bro-
ther, and duhitar, daughter.

The fact of extensive conformity in language;i
the most dissimilar to each other in many par-
ticulars, has been pointed out by other writers,
in an assemblage of Avords expressive of com-
mon universal ideas, or which relate to things
of daily occurrence or observation : as the
pronoun / or me, and its plural forms ; the
words descriptive of nature; the terms used to
express the elements luater and fire; and those
descriptive of mountains. " The far greater part
12

134 THE ORIGIN AND TROGRESS

of the names of mountains, lakes, and rivers in
the British islands, are, to this day, descriptive
and significant only in some Celtic language.
The appellations of these vast and permanent
parts of nature are commonly observed to con-
tinue as unchanged as themselves."* A few
specimens only of extensive illustrations in this
department are furnished in the following con-
formities between the English, Latin, German,
Eussian, and Sanscrit.

Sans.. . aghni, fire Latin.. . ignis Russ. . agu

Sans.. . hyma, cold Latin.. . hiems, winter

Sans.. . megali, great Greek.. . megale Saxon. . maga

Sans.. . sourgo, a height Latin.. . surgo
Sans.. . marcca, frontier English.. . mark (land) German. .

[mark, a frontier.

Sans... jMzra, sea Latin.. . wirtrc Celtic... mor

Sans.. . udakani, water Greek.. . hudor Welsh^. i^rfcr

Mr. Turner gives nearly two hundred ex-
amples of affinities between the Anglo-Saxon
and Laplandic, in words of common and daily
use ; and states that there are many more as
close, which he omits, that he may not over-
burden the attention of his readers. From
these we select the following.

ANGLO-SAXON. LAPLANDIC.

aide^ help aide^ a favour

aer^ brass aii\ brass

acer^ a field aker^ a field

aecse, an ax aksjo, an ax

beam, a son barne, a son

bonday a husband bond, a husband.

* Sir James Mackintosh's History of England, vol. i. p. r.v

OF LANGUAGE. 135

The conclusion deduced by Mr. Turner from
the very numerous affinities of the two lan-
guages is thus stated : " As the Laplandic is a
branch of the Hunnish stock, which came latest
into Europe, its affinities with the Saxon indi-
cate a consanguinity from primeval ancestry,
which concurs, with other resemblances, to
corroborate the ideas of the original unity and
subsequent dispersion of mankind." A good
idea of the extensive affinities of other words
in the languages of unrelated nations may be
obtciined by an examination of the specimens
of tlie Lord's Prayer, in a great number of'
languages, in Adelung* and Chamberlain.

These statements and examples will be suffi-
cient, we apprehend, to convince every unpre-
judiced reader that the idea of arranging the
numerals and other fundamental terms ol gene-
ral language into classes, according to their more
primitive elements and apparent consonances,
is not a fanciful undertaking. The coincidences
which thus appear afford as much evidence as
such topics mjiy be expected to yield that they
cannot all have been accidental. No doctrine of
chances can account for their existence. That dis-
tant tribes, supposing them even to be independent
in their origin, should accidentally have many
similar sounds, may be admitted as not only
possible, but highly probable ; at the same
time, it must be allowed, that it is more than
probable that they would be einployed to ex-
press very different conceptions. If fifty dif-
ferent nations were found using the hexameter
* Mithridates oder allgemeine Sprachenkunde.

13G THE OmGIN AND PROGRESS

and pentameter lines in verse, tlie French
Alexandrine, or the poetical form of Tasso's
stanzas, no reasonable person would suppose
such a conformity to be purely accidental.
It would arise either from some inherent law
of poetry, which impelled to their adoption, or
irom the study of some prototypes which sug-
gested their employment. It is still more cer-
tain that no chances of human pronunciation
can account for the sounds ma^ and pa, and
their compounds, being fixed upon by so many
independent tribes to express the relation of
• parents, in preference to all the other utterances
of the voice, if every one of these tribes had
expressly invented them for its own use, and
from its own untauglit impulses. Their general
adoption indicates a common relation to one
primitive form of language.

There is, moreover, another point of analogy
found in languages, equally important with that
which we have considered. The enlightened
advocates of verbal comparison, as we have
seen, do not presume to found conclusions on
mere casual resemblances. They do not even
deem it sufficient to detect indubitable analo-
gies, unless the coincidences are found in words
which express ideas of primary and universal
necessity. And when a tolerably extensive
coincidence is discovered in primitive words,
it is safe to seek for the severer requirements of
conformity in grammatical structure. Then
only is it believed that the languages in which
these coincidences of w^ords and form are found
should be considered as related. This has led

OF LANGUAGE. 137

to the discovery of a prevailing uniformity in
the general principles of universal grammar.

It is evident that all languages employ similar
classes of general terms, such as pronouns ; and
appear to connect them with terms indicating
action, so as to produce verbs, varying through
mimbers and persons. They employ terms
descriptive of things and objects as nouns, and
adopt methods by which they express the
relation of nouns, which we term cases. These
statements are so obviously true as to require
no illustration. This conformity in the general
j^rinciples of the mechanism of language is too
decided and universal to be explained by ascrib-
ing it to an identity in the metaphysical opera-
tions of the human mind, or the creative genius
of differing nations who might possess much
in common. " No language has yet been dis-
covered, either among savage or polished na-
tions, which was not governed by rules and
principles which nature could alone dictate, and
human science could never have imagined."*
The prevalence of these principles in all lan-
guages points to a common origin, and is every
way incompatible with the irrational hypothesis
of a thousand different tribes inventing a thou-
sand different tongues.

There are instances where, from the action
of some external cause upon a language, its
words appear to assimilate with one tongue,
and its grammar with another. And there are
numerous instances in which the words are

♦ Mr. Du Ponceau, an American philologist.

12*

138 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

unique, while the grammatical structure is
conformed to that of language generally. In
the principal languages of America, we can
trace but few marks of verbal coincidence ; yet
the elaborate mechanism which pervades the
whole, and the methods by which they all
express very complicated relations and various
modifications of original ideas, evince the most
remarkable identity. An accomplished writer,
some years since, in the Quarterly Review, says :
" Of all the European tongues, Finnish is, per-
haps, the most remote from Sanscrit. The
numerals have nothing in common, and there
are very few coincidences in the names of
ordinary objects. Nevertheless, the personal,
relative, and demonstrative pronouns, and the
terminations of the verbs, are composed of nearly
the same elements in both. It would be as
absurd to ascribe this coincidence to accident,
as to suppose that one race had borrowed terras
of this sort from the other. The only rational
supposition is, that they are, in both languages,
derived from the^ same source, and, conse-
quently, existed long before Sanscrit and Fin-
nish had assumed their present forms."

Mr. F. Adelung has exhibited some remark-
able affinities between the Russian and German.
He has " put together a few sentences in the
two languages, containing in the whole fifty
words, literally translated from the one lan-
guage into the other, and striking out all the
vowels, and leaving only the consonants as the
bones or skeletons of the words, has shown them
to be exactly the same."

OF LANGUAGE.

139

As an example of languages which furnish
analogies, both in their grammatical structure
and affinities, we subjoin the present tense of
the verb to be, in the Latin and Russian.

SINGULAR.

Latin

sum es

est

Russian .

. esmi eti

esti

PLURAL.

Latin . sumus estis sunt

Russian . esmi este siite

Some verbal affinities between these two lan-
guages are presented in the following instances,
which could readily be multiplied.

LATIN.

RUSSIAN.

ENGLISH.

Pastor

Pastir

Pastor

Ovis

Ovets

Sheep

Agnus

Agnets

A lamb

Spina

Spinu

A thorn

Pascit

Paschet

He feeds

Videt

Vidit

He sees

Jugum

Igum

Yoke

Crumena

Kamana

A purse

Cams

Charosch

Dear

These examples are principally taken from
Adelung; but the same principle and modes of
comparison, verbal and grammatical, are em-
ployed by Professor Bopp, in his work on the
Sanscrit, Zend, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian,
Gothic, German, and Sclavonic languages,
though his illustrations are principally derived
from an analysis of their different grammars.
Further illustrations of these coincidences may
be found in an able article cm Language in the

140 THE OKIGIN AND PROGRESS

Penny Cyclopaedia, understood to be the joint
production of Professor Long, Dr. W. Smith,
and the Rev. Philip Smith, b.a.

The study of comparative languages has
brought into visible relationship many which
seemed hopelessly disunited, and " wide as the
poles asunder." Out of these, great groups or
families have been formed, so that nations and
tribes, covering vast tracts of country, are in
this study accounted one people, connected by
the indestructible tie of language. These re-
searches have tended, in almost every instance,
to diminish the number of independent lan-
guages, to widen the pale of the larger pro-
vinces, to bring the number of original stocks
into much nearer relationship than was at all
imagined half a century since, and in a most
beautiful and unintentional manner to shed the
light of confirmatory evidence on the Scripture
account of the history of the human race. The
"earliest disclosures of ethnography, as to the
enormous number of languages spoken through-
out the world, threatened to falsify the Mosaic
narrative, but further investigations brought
out results overwhelmingly fatal to infidelity.
As one language after another took its place in
the group to which it belonged, these groups
were found to be included in a yet wider gene-
ralization. Of the nature of these affinities and
their results, we shall now proceed to speak in
general terms, availing ourselves of the state-
ments of some of the most gifted of the literati
of Europe in this department of scholarship.

Eeferring to the conclusions of Humboldt,

OF LANGUAGE. 141

Klaproth, Sclilegel, Niebuhr, Balbi, Pott,
Adelung, and Vater, Dr. Wiseman observes :
It was found that the Teutonic dialects re-
ceived considerable light from the language of
Persia; that Latin had remarkable points of
contact with Itussian and the other Sclavonic
idioms; and that the theory of the Greek verbs
in mi could not be well understood without
recourse to their parallels in Sanscrit or
Indian grammar. It was demonstrated that
one speech, essentially so called, pervaded a
considerable portion of Europe and Asia,
and, stretching across in a broad sweep from
Ceylon to Iceland, united in a bond of lan-
guage nations possessing the most dissimilar
institutions, and bearing but a slight resem-
blance in physiognomy and colour. This family
has received the name of Indo-Germanic, or
Indo-European. Its great members are the
Sanscrit and Persian, ancient and modern;
Teutonic with its various dialects ;, Sclavonian,
Greek, and Latin accompanied by numerous
derivatives; and to these must be added the
Celtic dialects. Extensive is the territory occu-
pied by these, including the whole of Europe,
excepting only the small tracts held by the
Biscayan and Finnish family ; thence it extends
over a great part of Southern Asia.*

The interesting nook in Spain, and Aqui-
taine, in France, constituting one of these small
exceptions, is occupied by the Basque, who are
supposed to be a remnant of the old Iberians,

* Wiseman's Lectures ou the Connexion between Science
and Revelation, vol. i.

142 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

whorse language, though it contains words of
Celtic and Latin origin, has essential diiferences,
which shut it out from the Indo-European
family. It is supposed that the Iberians arrived
in Europe before the Indo-European nations,
and maintained their language distinct from
that of the tribes who surrounded them.

Further researches have not only confirmed
the general conclusions touching the affinities
of the Indo-European languages, but have dis-
closed wider coincidences. Klaproth, by his
journey to the Caucasus, has made it clearly
appear, that the Armenian language, contrary
to previous supposition, is a branch of this
great family. He has published a vocabulary
of Armenian words, occupying seventeen quarto
pages, in which a considerable proportion is
proved to be Indo-European. The Affghan
language, also, which was supposed to be an
exception, has been included in the same
family. Klaproth compared a vocabulary ot
more than two hundred Affghan words, and
proved them to belong to the same race. The
Hungarian has been shown to belong to the
Finnish family, though left out by Wiseman,
and this has been found to include various
nations, extending over the north of Asia.
The principal of these are the Tschudish and
Samoiede, in whose languages numerous ana-
logies are found with the Caucasian. These
coincidences are not attributable to accident,
nor to recent intercourse, and " they consist of
words designating the most simple and universal
objects." Dr. Prichard states that, in the few

OF LANGUAGE. 143

specimens we have of the dialects of the Mor-
danans, and other Tcshudish nations, and in
those of the Samoiede stock, he observed traces
of coincidence with the Anglo-Saxon.

Another great family of languages embraces
those which ar(» well known as the Shemitic, or
Semitic, languages. Of these there is no neces-
sit}' fur speaking at any length, as the intimate
rehitionship between the dialects into which
they branch out has long been acknowledged.
They include, among others, the Hebrew,
Syriuc, Chaldaic, Arabic, and Abyssinian, and
the old Phoenician languages. An exception
has been taken to the name of this group on the
ground that these languages were not peculiar
to the race of Shem, nor yet co-extensive with
it. And it has been proposed to adopt the term
Phoenicio- Shemitic, as implying the two-fold
character of the races who used these languages ;
the Phoenician branch of the race of Ham, as
well as the western division of the family of
Shem.* It is not, however, very probable that
any change of designation will be readily ad-
mitted for this well-known family of languages.
They are related closely to each other in struc-
ture and in words, as the Chaldee and Syriac,
with the Samaritan to the Hebrew. There is
a striking conformity in the Ethiopic to the
Hebrew, and the Arabic is very similar to the
last-mentioned language. " In this tongue were
laid up the mysteries of the Old Testament. It
began early, and continued, and increased in
glory, till the captivity in Babylon. The whole
* See Preface to Gesenius' Hebrew Lexicoo. Bagster's edition.

144 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

tongue is contained in the Bible ; and no one
book else in the world contains in it a whole
language." *

The Malayian languages, as they have been
called, lead us in their examination to a con-
elusion similar to that resulting from a review
of other groups. According to Marsden and
Crawford, who have written on these languages,
they should, however, rather be called the
Polynesian than the Malayian family, as the
Malay, properly so called, is only one among
many to which it is related. In all the lan-
guages comprised in this group there is a great
tendency to the monosyllabic form, and to the
rejection of all inflexion, by which they ap-
proximate to the neighbouring groups of Trans-
gangetic languages, with which Dr. Leyden is
induced to unite them. Thus, again, we have
another large family stretching over a vast
portion of the globe, and comprising many
languages which, a few years ago, were consi-
dered independent of each other, and related by
no one common tie or principle.

With the languages of Africa we are less
familiar than with those of most other parts of
the Old World. The prevalence of the cruel
and inhuman slave-trade carried on upon the
African coast, and the destructive influence of
thfe climate of that continent on European life,
have hitherto mournfully checked the progress
of Christian missions in that region of barbarous
idolatry. The same causes have limited the
enterprises of commerce, and the researches of
* Dr. Lightfoot's Works, vol. iv. p. 48.

OF LANGUAGE. 145

travellers. Consequently, no very extensive or
accurate comparison of these languages has 3'et
been effected. In the darkness of ignorance
concerning them, there has been a tendency to
exaggerate their probable numbers. Seetzen
spoke of one hundred and fifty languages as pre-
vailing in Africa; but there is reason to believe,
from the analogy supplied by the other quarters
of the globe, and from the result of incipient ex-
aminations, that this number may be actually
reduced to one-fourth or to one-fifth of that
amount. Dr. Prichard affirms that every new
research in the African dialects displays con-
nexions between tribes the most dissimilar, and
even between those which are geographically
separated by intermediate nations. In the
north, he says, conformities are to be found
in the languages spoken by the Berbers and
Tuaricks, from the Canaries to Sava; in central
Africa, between the dialects spoken by the
Felatas and Foulahs, who occupy nearly the
whole interior ; and in the south, among the
tribes across the whole continent from CafFre-
land to the Atlantic Ocean.*

The American languages were once thought
to be all but innumerable, and to be totally
independent of each other ; but even these
strange tongues of the New "World are now
found to be comparatively few, and to be
united to each other by a strong family tie.
" From a careful examination," says the Eev.
J. D. Conybeare, " of the information which
Vater, in his great philological work, has col-

* Celtic Researches, p. 61.
13

146 THE ORIGIN AND PROGUESS

lected concerning tlie dialects of America, lam
persuaded that the distinct parent tongues of
the New Continent cannot exceed forty, and
■more accurate investigations would probably
reduce that number."*

And the process, which has reduced their
supposed numbers, has proved their close affi-
nity. ^^ Recent examinations of the structure
pervading all the American languages have left
no room to doubt that they all form one indivi-
dual family, closely knitted together in all its
parts by the most essential of all ties, gram-
matical analogy. This analogy is not of a
vague indefinite kind, but complex in the ex-
treme, and affecting the most necessary and
<3lementary parts of grammar ; for it consists
chiefly in the peculiar methods of modifying
conjugationally the meanings and relations of
verbs, by the insertion of syllables. Nor is.
this analogy partial, but extends over both
great divisions of the New World, and gives a
family air to languages spoken under the torrid
and arctic zones, by the wildest and the more
civilized tribes." |

American philologists have bestowed much
attention on this subject. The result is that
striking analogies have been recognised, not
only in the more perfect languages, as that of
the Incas, the INIexican, and the Cora, but
also in languages extremely rude. Idioms, the
roots of which are most dissimilar, have sur-
prising resemblances of internal mechanism.
All the languages of America, so far as they
* Bristol Lectures, p. 288. t Conybeare's Lectures, p. 289.

OF LANGUAGE. 147

have been investigated, appear to have a dis-
tinctive character in common with each other,
and differing from those of the other continents.
We are now in a position to hazard an
opinion on the probable number of what may
be termed the parent languages of the world,
by summing up the results which have thus
been patiently arrived at. From these it will
appear that, allowing the opinion to be founded
in fact, that there are five hundred existing
languages and dialects, differing more or less in
structure, in words, or pronunciation, yet the
tongues which, in any sense, can be called
parent, must be reduced to a comparatively
small number. The languages of Asia, it is
thought, amount to about twenty-three, to which
Europe adds only one, namely, the Basque.
America furnishes, probably, about forty, and
Africa, it is believed, about twenty-five. These
swell our estimate of the parent tongues of the
whole globe to eighty-nine. Many of these it
must, however, be remembered, stand in near
relations to others which compose great families,
as we have seen in the notices furnished of the
Malay, Semitic, and Indo-European families ;
while all these, however dissimilar to each
other in a thousand particulars, have features
common to each and to all, which point to the
fact of a common origin.

" Now if we look at the inferences deducible
from this leading and indisputable fact, we
should, even if we were unable to advance
another step, find these inferences most satisfac-
torily converging towards the biblical theory.

148 THE ORIGIN AND PROQliESS

which teaches us to regard the Avhole human
race as a single species. It is difficult to con-
ceive any hypothesis of the origin of languages,
which must not necessarily limit a peculiar lan-
guage to the members of a single family, at the
period of its first appearance ; and we may,
therefore, gather very satisfactory evidence,
that the many million actual families of the
earth must assuredly have descended from not
more than one hundred families. It is surely
a far easier step than this to deduce that hun-
dred from a single family in the first instance ;
and this I call a converging argument."* Julius
Klaproth, to whose magnificent work, the ''Asia
Polj'glotta," we have before alluded, says, with
a confidence which, in such a man, is not un-
becoming, " He flatters himself that, in his
works, the universal affinity of language is
placed in so strong a light, that it must be
considered by all as completely demonstrated."
Let infidelity, renouncing its flippancy and
boldness of conjecture, philologically overturn
these conclusions, or henceforth be silent, and
forbear to blaspheme !

* Archaeologia Americana, vol. ii«

OF LANGUAGE. 149

CHAPTER VIII.

Aflditional historiv;-! confirmations of the sacred Scriptures
— The state of society and language after the deluge —
Confusion of tongues at Babel— The period of its occur-
rence— Scripture statement of the miraculous event —
Scene of the division — Evidence for fixing it in the
vicinity of Babylon — Design of the builders — Nature of
the confusion — No other event in history accounts for
all the existing diversities and conformities in language —
'Oils does fully— Harmony in the facts and the testimony —
Confinnatiou by heathen "opinion.

In the advancing steps of our subject we find
that every part of the biblical narrative re-
specting the early history of our race is beauti-
fully illustrated and variously confirmed by
the facts which that history develops or sup-
plies. And this is especially the case as we go
back in thought to the memorable period when,
as the waters of the deluge subsided, the ark
rested on one of the highest summits of Ararat —
a mountainous range in eastern i^rmenia — and
Noah and his family came forth to re-people
the earth. Society had been thrown back by
the catastrophe, and reduced to its first ele-
ments. The treasures of knowledge had sunk,
with their possessors, " like lead in the mighty
waters ;" and the few fragments preserved in
the ark were as so many imperishable seeds,
from which the tree of knowledge might grow,
so as to overshadow the race. The first act of
13*

150 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

Noali after his deliverance was to build an
altar to the Lord, and to present a sacrifice of
thanksgiving. This \vas graciously accepted.
God renewed his covenant with the earth, con-
firmed to the patriarch the temporal blessings
granted to Adam, with some additions, and
republished the injunction to multiply, tx) re-
plenish the earth, and to subdue it. As a sign
of this covenant, the rajnbow, which must have
existed from the beginning, in consequence
of the immutable laws of the refraction and
reflection of the sun's ra3'S in drops of falling
rain, was appointed. From this small rem-
nant, mercifully snatched from the wreck of
our race, society started anew, with multiplied
means of social and religious improvement ;
and from this, as from a fountain, all the
streams of population, with their evils or bene-
fits, have flowed. Profane history gives her
effective, though tacit, testimony to the fact of
the deluge and to this late commencement of
the career of society. All records of the origin
and establishment of existing nations are sub-
sequent to this period. No statements, on
which any dependence can be placed, affect to
reach higher, or even so high. The time when
communities became numerous or formidable,
Avhen they extended their limits, pUmted colo-
nies, refined their manners, and formed their
literature, all confine our attention within the
date assigned by Moses, as that at which the
postdiluvian race began its career.

The period of time which elapsed from the
deluge to that great event, the confusion of

OF LANGUAGE. 151

tongues at Babel — to wliicli we are prepared to
ascribe the origin of the existtng diversity of
languages — has been very variously computed.
Dr. Hales, to whose " Chronology " we have
already referred, computes it at six hundred and
one years. Shorter periods have been assumed
by other "writers, but the briefest of these Avould
be sufficient to allow of the multiplication of
the human family, so as to form the foundation
of many separate nations, when the longevity
of life, as then possessed, is taken into account.
In the days of Peleg occurred a division of the
earth, according to the will of its Creator.
That is, we think, the decree was then definitely
promulged, and men began in part to act upon
it. Journeying in a prescribed direction, they
suddenly halted on the plains of Shinar, and
resolved to build a tower, as a rallying point,
to prevent their dispersion. Their ungodly
design was frustrated by the miraculous confu-
sion of tongues at Babel. This event pre-
ceded the general dispersion, and affected the
whole of the descendants of Noah ; for the
settlements of the three primitive families are
said to have been, " after their tongues, in
their countries, and in their nations," Gen. x.
5, 20, 31.

This great event, which satisfactorily ac-
counts for all the existing phenomena of lan-
guage, is thus narrated in the sacred Scriptures :
" And the whole earth was of one language,
and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they
journeyed from the east, that they found a plain
in the land of Shinar ; and they dwelt there.

152 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

And tliey said one to another, Go to, let us
make brick, and burn them throughly. And
they had brick for stone, and slime had they
for mortar. And they said, Go to, let us build
us a city and a tower, whose top ,Tnay reach
unto heaven ; and let us make us a name, lest
we be scattered abroad upon the face of the
whole earth. And the Lord came down to see
the city and the tower, which the children of
men builded. And the Lord said, Behold,
the people is one, and they have all one lan-
guage ; and this they begin to do : and now
nothing will be restrained from them, which
they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go
down, and there confound their language, that
they may not understand one another's speech.
So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence
upon the face of all the earth : and they left off
to build the city. Therefore is the name of it
called Babel ; because the Lord did there con-
found the language of all the earth : and from
thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon
the face of all the earth," Gen. xi. 1 — 9.*
The meaning of each sentence, and of almost
every Avord in the narrative, has been keenly
contested and critically examined, while con-
clusions the most dissimilar have been drawn
from the whole. It is not our intention even
to state, much less to refute, what we deem
erroneous interpretations of the passage, but
simply, by a few explanatory remarks, to ex-
hibit what we believe is its real meaning ;

* Compare Gen. x. with Exod. xv. 14—16, and Deut. xxxii.
7-9.

OF LANGUAGE. 153

especially in the bearing of the event it de-
scribes on the progress of language.

The place of this primitive encampment is
usually allowed to have been near the site of
Babylon. " The city appears to have received
its name from the Aramean term, confusion,
alluding to the confusion of tongues which
originated there ; and it is not a little con-
firmatory of the authenticity of the Scriptural
account of that circumstance, that the Arabic
word bulbul, which is formed from the same
root, should still mean to talk with a confused
and mingled language ; and that, even in the
dialects of the Teutonic, now used by the
English and French, there should be a recoo:-
nition of that event in the application, in the
one dialect, of the word babble to a confused
and indeterminate method of speech ; and, in
the other, of the noun bahillard, to denote a
man whose conversation is confused, or one
inordinately loquacious."* The tower of Belus
was, probably, the original tower of Babel,
repaired and finished by some subsequent
monarchs. There are now to be found ruins
of great magnitude and antiquity in the neigh-
bourhood of ancient Babylon, which the wan-
dering tribes of the desert regard as remains of
the stupendous enterprise of its first settlers.
IModern travellers tell us that bricks of an
antique construction are there frequently dug
up, and that the temper of these bricks is of a
kind w'hich nothing but the intense heat of a
furnace could have effected, reminding us of
* Lectures on Prophecy, by C. N. Davies, p. 78.

154 THE OUIGIN AND PPwOGRESS

the language of tlie builders of this memorable
tower, " Let us make bricks, and burn them
throughly."

The supposed locality of this erection was
about twelve hundred miles from the plain at
the foot of Ararat, in which the inipiediate
family of Noah dwelt. By what route the
travellers reached their place of encampment is
not certain. The Chaldean historian, Berosus,
says, "they proceeded circuitously to Babylon."
It is ])robable that they followed the course of
the Euphrates. This river, rising in the
mountains of Armenia, flows at first in a
Avesterly direction ; then it turns to the south,
and at length, bending eastward, it reaches
Bal)ylon, from the north-west. This route
corresponds with the Scripture statement, which
represents the multitude as travelling, from the
original settlement, eastward.

The design of the people in attempting this
erection was to get themselves a name, and to
counteract the Divine intention of their being
scattered abroad on the face of the earth. This
incurred the displeasure of God, who is said to
have come down to confound their plans. This
may be a figurative expression to aid our con-
ceptions of the Divine interposition, or may
denote that the Shekinah was brought to earth,
attended with tokens of disapprobation. In
either case, we conceive that direct efficiency
by the hand of God is the idea intended to be
conveyed. The confusion introduced caused
the builders to desist from their work, and
thence they were scattered abroad.

OF LANGUAGE. 155

The exact nature of this confusion may be
determined from its immediate resuhs. Words
derived from the root ^1?^, Genesis xi. 9,
which simply means confusion, occur nearly
forty times in the Pentateuch, in the sense of
mingling things together so as to produce com-
pounds or heterogeneous bodies, as mingled
wine, flower, and flesh for sacrificial rites. It
is also used in Hosea vii. 8, " Ephraim, he
hath mixed himself among the people." Some
writers suppose that a diversity of opinion
among the builders, about the erection, or con-
cerning worship, confounded their counsels ;
and others understand by it a mere temporary
confusion of speech. But the plain express
terms of the history go beyond these hypo-
theses, and imply a permanent confusion of
languages. This might have been effected by
a miraculous breaking up of the one language
into many, or by a divergence into varieties of
dialect mutually unintelligible, with decided
alterations in the pronunciation of words re-
tained in common, so as to prevent their carry-
inn; out their desiLni in building.

There is no recorded event in human history
which can adequately account for the existing di-
versities and conformities in lanQfuaije — but this.
If it should be said that time and separation, and
the descent of one language from another, would
renlize the present state of things, we demand
proof of the assertion : and none can be given.
Some known languages of Asia have existed
four thousand years. In all that time they
liave not approached nearer to each other than

156 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

they were in the remotest antiquity to which
we can trace them. In all languages there is
a strong tendency to preserve their original
structure. There is no instance of a mono-
syllabic language becoming poly-syllabic; or
vice versil. The Sanscrit and Chinese are un-
changed by the flight of time. Lepsius has
proved the ancient Egyptian, as written in
hieroglyphics, to be identical with the Coptic
of the Liturgy. The Basque, surrounded for
ages by hostile idioms, retains its ancient struc-
ture. The oldest Greek is, in all essential
qualities, the same as that of the Attic trage-
dies. The Grecian tongue rendered the Latin
language more easy and pliable, " but not a
declension was added to its grammar, a particle
to its lexicon, or a letter to its alphabet," by the
efforts of Greek philosophers and grammarians.
This grand Scripture event accounts for all the
peculiarities which belong to language. Before
the social disruption at Babel, one primitive
language was universal, and this accounts for
all the identities and resemblances now found
amongst scattered and widely-separated nations.
The confounding of the original speech of man-
kind fully explains the origin of the variety of
languages, whose separate peculiarities would
become more decided and indelible by the lapse
of forty centuries. As the primitive language
was subjected to a violent disruption, fragments
only of it could be carried away by each di-
verging tribe, who Avould gradually build up
new languages, while all retained some ele-
ments of their former speech.

OF LANGUAGE. 157

Sucli a state of things as that which might
be supposed to result from the confusion of
Babel is actually realized in the present state
of the languages of the world. They all
display such affinities as suggest the idea of
a common origin, and yet exhibit such dis-
parities as preclude the notion of regular
descent and tranquil formation. If the primi-
tive language had not been suddenly broken
up, but many languages had been gradually
formed from it, each one might be supposed
to exhibit that general similarity to the rest
which exists in the Spanish and Italian to the
Latin ; and not the correspondence of frag-
ments of identity, amidst far more abundant
diversity of materials. Identity without struc-
tural diversity would prove only a common
derivation ; diversity without identity Avould
disprove a sameness of origin ; but so much
resemblance, and so much disparity, exactly
coincide with the statement of an anterior
unity, and of a subsequent confusion and dis-
persion .

We observe, without attaching any undue
importance to the circumstance, that ancient
profane Avriters corroborate, by their testimony,
the fiict of a confusion of tongues, as occurring
at Babylon. The fable of giants attempting to
climb the heavens probably originated in this
fact. Josephus quotes one of the Sibyls as
affirming that all mankind spoke the same
language, till some of them erected a tower,
immensely high, wdiich was overthrown by the
gods, who assigned to each a particular lan-
U

158 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

giiage. Alydenies, as preserved by Eusebius,
uses similar terms in reference to the remark-
able event. Indeed, all early traditional ac-
counts correspond with the Mosaic in this par-
ticular. The Greeks attributed the diversity
of human languages to a Divine interposition,
, though, according to their practice, they have
wrought it up into fable. They report that
under the reign of Saturn all terrestrial crea-
tures had one common language, and that they
sent a deputation to Saturn, entreating that
they might be endowed with immortality. He,
in great indignation, refused their petition, con-
founded their language, and thereby separated
and scattered them.* A tradition, preserved
in an Egyptian temple, describes whirlwinds
as beating down a tower, when all inter-
course ceased among men, who strove in vain
to disclose their mind, but their lips failed them,
and they produced a babbling sound. "j" Thus
heathens unintentionally confirm the truth of
the Bible in this particular, as in many others;
and this remarkable transaction seems to be
blended wath the early recollections of most
ancient nations.

* Redford's Holy Scripture "Verified, p. 158.
t Bryant's Mythology, vol. iv. p. 100.

OF LANGUAGE. 159

CHAPTER IX.

state of society immediately after the Dispersion— Tlie origin
of nations — Descendants of Shem — of Ham— of Japheth —
Correspondence in the classes of languaiJ^es to the triparte
division of the human family — Influence of secondary causes
in augmenting diversities of tongues— Deteriorating process
of language — Means of its improvement— The influenceof lite-
rature on language— Relation of poetry to prose— Origin of
writing by alphabetic characters— It was not the offspring of
hieroglyph ical symbols — Not invented by different nations
— Appears to have been disclosed to Moses in the writing
of the law— Gradually extended to other nations — Notices
of the materials employed in ancient writing— Scarcity of
books in the dark ages — Invention and progress of
printing.

At the dawn of secular history, we find the
ancient world occupied by tribes, differing from
each other in circumstances of physical consti-
tution, outward form, usage, and especially
language ; all of which diiFerences might be
anticipated from the brief historic glimpses
afforded by Moses. The first nations, though
separated,- were yet settled in adjoining coun-
tries, and retained, with their characteristic
differences, such a similitude to one another as
distinctly marked out their common origin.
It would be difficult, if not impossible, we
think, to trace, with perfect accuracy, the wan-
derings and settlements of subordinate divisions
of the primeval family ; but the Scripture
narrative in Genesis supplies the grand outline
of the principal settlements. The multiplied

IGO THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

ruins scattered along the banks of the Eu-
])hrates confirm the representation that the
plain of Shinar was the depository of the
earliest memorials of the human race and ol
human art. It was the fountain-head whence
the streams of population flowed into all the
other regions of the earth. Hence nations, the
most remote from each other, and especially
those possessed of any tolerable degree of civi-
hsation, possess proof or retain traditions of
their connexion with the east, or with those
that migrated from it.

From Noah proceeded, according to the
Bible, three principal families, each of which
became the parent stock of many nations. It
is remarkable, that nearly all the known
inhabitants of the world can be traced up to
one of these three roots, and to no others. The
domestic prophecy uttered by Noah, and re-
corded in Genesis ix. 25, 27, respecting the
permanent condition and destiny of his three-
fold descendants, embraced such facts as no
human sagacity could have foreseen. It has
been literally accomplished in all its parti-
culars, and thus clearly proves the inspiration of
the patriarch. The earliest civilized nations
which inhabited Asia and Africa appear to
have issued from the line of Ham. The elder
stem of Japheth furnished that posterity which
has taken the lead of the human race, since the
introduction of Christianity, and has become in
modern times distinguished for a course of
civilisation and improvement, which has sur-

OF LANGUAGE. IGl

passed all that existed in the ancient eras of
humanity. From Shem proceeded the Abrahumic
nation, and apparently the Assyrian state, for
Asshur was his son, and is said to have built
Nineveh, the metropolis of the Assyrian empire.
In this line of descent was Abraham, who was
the ancestor of four great streams of nations.
These were the Edomites or Idumeans, the red
men of the east, who descended from his grandson
Esau, and fixed their name on the lied Sea; the
Jews, who descended from his grandson Jacob ;
the Arabs, who were his descendants through
his son Ishmael ; and those tribes which arose in
the east of Syria from his children by Keturah.
Two t)f these races, the Jews and the Arabians,
multiplied, and have continued in ever-renewed
and preserved generations to our own time.

Ham had four sons, named Cush, Mizraim,
Phut, and Canaan. These represent, according
to the Hebrew geography, the regions and an-
cestors of Ethiopia, Egypt, hibya, and Canaan.
Cush represents to us Ethiopia; that part of the
east district of Africa which spread from Meroe
in Upper Egypt, along the Eed S$ix, toward the
Indian (3cean. Some of his descendants settled
in Arabia, and his most celebrated son, Nimrod,
was the founder of Babylon. From Mizraim
descended the colonies which established them-
selves in Egypt, and several other tribes who
peopled p(jrtions of Afi-ica. Phut Avas the an-
cestor of the Libyan population. From one of
the sons of jMizraim sprang the Philistines. His
son, Canaan, was the progenitor of the Phoeni-

11 re

162 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

cians. The Sinite nation sprang from him, and
it now appears to be represented by the Chinese.
From Canaan sprang those depraved nations
•whom Israel drove out from Palestine.

Japhetli seems to have been the ancestor of
the chief populations both of ancient and modern
Europe, and Upper Asia. He had seven sons,
and as many grandsons from two of the others.
The Turks and Tartars, the Medes and Gre-
cians, the Cimmerians and Thracians, with
many other nations, sprang from these. The
descendants of Javan appear to have had large
relations with Europe, and to Japheth and his
offspring are ascribed generally, by the Mosaic
record, all the insular or maritime popula-
tions and colonies of the Gentile nations.
" By these were the isles of the Gentiles
divided in their lands ; every one after his
tongue, after their families, in the nations,"
Gen. X. 5.

We find the cradles or nurseries of these first
nations, not on the high and barren tracts of
the earth, but on the banks and estuaries of
rivers, and on extensive plains, or in valleys.
Three such regions appear to have ' been inha-
bited by three descendants of the sons of Noah,
who became remarkable for founding cities, or
inventing arts. In one of these localities the
Semitic nations exchanged the simple habits of
wandering shepherds for the splendour and
luxury of Nineveh and Babylon. In the second,
the Japhetic people founded those institutions,
and built up those languages which are now

OF LANGUAGE. 163

SO advanced in Europe. - In the third, the land
of Ham, on the banks of the Nile, were invented
that symbolical literature, and those arts, in
which Egypt excelled the ancient world.

Soon after the dispersion of these different
roots of families, it is reasonable to suppose that
the diversities of language, which at first led to
their separation, would begin to assume a more
definite and permanent form, which, with the
lapse of ages, created the variety of languages
now existing among men. As they multiplied,
and spread to a great distance from each other,
the original confusion was not only kejDt up, but
the differences between their dialects became
greater. Tribes that settled near to each other
would, though of different families, retain more
resemblance to each other's speech than those
who became separated by immeasurable dis-
tances ; while these last would become in turn
the parents of new nations, and propagate their
language, not only amongst their own descend-
ants, but by blending it with some existing lan-
guage of a conquered tribe.

The triparte division of the human family
appears to have had a remarkable analogy in
the broader features of all languages. Hence
many philologists have included all existing
known tongues under three great divisions,
which they distinguisli from one another by the
following characteristics.

1. Languages composed of monosyllabic roots,
without the capability of combination and con-
traction, and hence without any forms of gram-

164 THE OPJGIN AND PROGRESS

mar. To this class belongs the Chinese, in
which we find nothing but naked roots, and in
which the meaning of words is determined, not
by grammatical relations, but by the position of
words in a sentence.

2. Languages possessing monosyllabic roots,
which are capable of combination, and which
thence derive a great abundance of grammatical
forms. To this class the Indo-European,
American, and other tribes of language belong.

3. Languages whose verbal roots consist in
their present form of two syllables, and require
three consonants for the expression of their fun-
damental meaning. Of this class, which em-
braces the Semitic tongues, the Hebrew may be
regarded as a familiar type. This family con-
tains but few examples of compound words,
and possesses few grammatical forms.

The general relations of languages included
in any of these divisions may thus be stated.
Languages that differ from each other as the
Anglo-Saxon from the Latin, differ as languages
of the same tribe, but of different stocks. Lan-
guages that differ as the Icelandic and Anglo-
Saxon, differ as languages of the same stock,
but of different branches. Those that differ
from each other as the Anglo-Saxon and Moeso-
Gothic, differ as languages of the same branch,
but of different divisions. Languages of the
same division that differ from each other as the
English from the Dutch, differ as languages,
using the term in a restricted sense, and in
opposition to such provincial differences, as

OF LANGUAGE. 165

obtain between Durham and Devon, wliich are
dialects of the same language.*

While we affirm that nothing short of the su-
pernatural agency employed at Babel could have
originated the existing diversity of languages, or
can account for the very early existence of those
immense diversities which all ethnical histories
attribute to the very beginning of their re-
spective nations, we believe that dialectical
differences and extensive grammatical varia-
tions would be effected by secondary causes,
when once the primitive division had taken
place. There would be no longer the attraction
to one common form of speech derived from the
first parent, and regarded as the gift of God,
which existed as the bond of language before
the confusion. New objects and new modes of
life presenting themselves to persons settling in
various climes would, with new customs and
habits, produce a considerable number of new
terms, and combinations of old ones. The amal-
gamation of tribes with each other Avould again
produce fresh combinations. Comparatively
slight dialectical differences would gradually
introduce considerable divergence in the forms
and sounds of words, inflexions, and termina-
tions.

Languages which have thus descended from,
or were gradually formed out of, others, can be
readily identified by their conformity to the
parent stock, or elder branch. Thus the Greek
is supposed, by some writers, to be closely allied

* See illustrations of this in Professor Latham on the
"English Language," chap. i.

166 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

to the Hebrew, as most of its common words are
similar, when allowance is made for changes in
the termination and some characteristic qua-
lities. The resemblance between the English
and the Anglo-Saxon, between modern Greek
and ancient Greek, the present language of Italy
and the language of classic Rome, are striking
and undeniable, after all sorts of diverging
influences have been working upon them for
more than a thousand years.

The ordinary causes, to which we now refer,
appeal* also sufficient to account for the relative
perfection of different languages. By their in-
fluence the language of a people may be greatly
deteriorated. The founders of colonies have
often emigrated in small parties, or were borne
to their destination by what appeared accidental
circumstances. Settling in a waste uncultivated
region, they would separate widely, and direct
their chief attention to obtaining the means of
subsistence. Thus situated, neither they nor
their children would require to use all the words
and forms of speech which belonged to their
former condition. They would soon forget a
part of their language which they once under-
stood. The next generation, hearing only those
words spoken which their immediate wants de-
manded, would understand less of the language
familiar to their ancestors. Such families would
readily employ abbreviations, introduce vulgar
phrases, and adopt peculiar pronunciations.
The stamp of custom would in time give au-
thority to these forms of speech ; and the lan-
guage, while retaining a likeness to a family

OF LANGUAGE. 167

gronp, would become a deteriorated member ot
that family.

And from such a state of things as that
which we have now described there may have
arisen tlie means of improving a given lan-
guage. We suppose some of the scattered
families, in process of time, to unite, and to
« become mutually useful in the advancement ot
the social constitution. As they improve ir
the arts of life, new terms must be found tc
express their new ideas. Their limited vo-
cabulary calls for the invention of words
Their improved and improving taste require?
that euphony and polish should characterize
their language ; and, while its original foun-
dation remains broad enough for its later
superstructure, this receives proportion and
ornament corresponding with the advanced
condition of the people who employ it.

A vast variety of circumstances combined to
secure the perfection which obviously belonged
to some of the ancient languages, and which
characterizes the modern tongues of most
highly civilized nations. To them it is a
vehicle by which the most delicate and refined
emotions of the human heart are mutually
conveyed ; by which the most abstract notions
and conceptions are rendered intelligible ; and
by which all the ideas created by science, or
evoked by imagination, are accurately de-
scribed. To a highly cultivated people it is
not the mere instrument of necessity, but an
auxiliary to the most exalted refinement and
luxurious mental enjoj'ment. We are not

168 THE ORIGIN AND PROGKESS

always satisfied with having the conceptions of
others made known to us in simple and un-
adorned phraseology, but we require that they
should be conveyed to our minds with all the
ornament and attraction of a classic rhetoric —
with the grace and beauty of the most perfect
style.

The literature of any country cannot fail
deeply and constantly to influence its structure
as a spoken tongue. It is highly probable
that the commencement of literature, in all
those countries in which it has subsequently
attained its greatest development, was prior to
the commencement of writing. The want of
writing-materials, in such a state of society,
compels to the adoption of metre ; and hence
the first composition in any language is poetry.
There appears to be something in the nature of
early man, surrounded with the wonders of
earth and sky, that leads him to cultivate
poetry. Greece possessed a Hesiod and a
Homer before she could boast of a prose his-
torian. It is probable that, in primitive times,
there was scarcely in any desert a wandering
people which had not its lays. By most
nations poetry was employed, in the earliest
ages of their history, to communicate the lessons
of wisdom, to celebrate the achievements of
valour, to promulgate laws, and to embody
impressions of religion. Some of its noblest
productions are the offspring of a transition
state of society from comparative barbarism or
rudeness to high refinement; possessing much
of the strength of the former, and anticipating

OF LANGUAGE. 169

the superior polish- of tlie latter. Extensive
prose compositions are produced only after a
long period of civilisation, when writing has
become tolerably easy, and writing-materials are
sufficiently abundant. The verses of the bard
may be sung to the harp which he attunes,
but the lessons of the sage are to be inscribed
on the tablet, in intelligible characters. Prose
keeps pace with the logical development of a
language, but early epic poems and lyrical
hymns are inadequately provided with syntax.
Writing, therefore, can produce no great effect
in the way of improvement on the forms of a
language, while it exercises a most important
influence on the construction and connexion of
its sentences.

The Greeks and Romans are the two nations
in Europe amongst whom we trace the use of
letters at an early period. The similarity of
the ancient Latin characters to those of the
early Greek alphabet convinces us that the
former were derived from the latter. We are
then led to inquire from whom the Greeks
received a knowledge of the art of writing?
The lonians were the first people in Greece who
possessed letters, and the characters they used
were Phoenician. That they were taught the
use of them by Cadmus and his followers, was
affirmed by Plutarch, Herodotus, and Plato, and
was the general belief of the Greek nation.

It is a Avell-known fact that the letters called
Phcenician belonged, with some slight varia-
tions, to several eastern nations. They are
15

170 THE OKIGIN AND PROGRESS

shown, by Scaliger and others, to have been
identical with the Samar^n or the old Hebrew
character. The close resemblance of the one
to the other may be seen by a glance at the
comparative table of ancient alphabets formed
by Gesenius. We have no notice of an older
alphabet than the ancient Hebrew ; and the
question presents itself to us, Whence, and how
did the Jews obtain their knowledge of letters ?

While many writers have contended for the
Divine origin of alphabetic writing, several
others have adopted the opinion that it arose
naturally, out of hieroglyphical, or picture-
writing, by the construction of the symbols
into alphabetical letters. In support of this
theory, it is said that the letters of the primitive
alphabets were originally intended for the sym-
bols of the things whose names they bear ; as
aleph, an ox ; beth, a house ; gimel, a camel ;
and daleth, a door. This, however, may be
doubted ; for it is probable that the names
given to these letters were designed as artificial
helps of the memory, by means of the allitera-
tion— just as our spelling-books for children
frequently contain wood-cuts, in which a is
connected with an ass ; b with a bear ; c with
a cat ; and d with a dog ; — without any like-
ness between the letters and the objects being
either intended or conveyed.

So radically different are hieroglyphical
symbols from alphabetical letters, that they
appear incapable of transmutation into each
other. The former are imperfect outlines of
figures represented, which, in process of time,

OF LANGUAGE. 171

were transferred from sensible to intellectual
objects, and thus became a metapborical lan-
guage ; whereas letters are arbitrary marks of
a few simple elementary sounds, of the easiest
and readiest pronunciation, to which they bear
no manner of resemblance. While it may be
readily admitted that symbols and figures were
used to represent some of the objects of sense,
before a regular written language was neces-
sary, it may well be concluded that these could
not originate alphabetical characters.

The varieties of alphabetic characters led to
the opinion that each particular people invented
their own alphabet. This notion, so favourable
to national vanity, induced several ancient
nations to deify the parties from whom they
learned the art, or to attribute its origin to
their local gods. Thoth, or Mercury, is said
to have invented and taught the Egyptians the
use of letters. The Jewish rabbins say God
created them on the evening of the first -sabbath.
Pliny seems to have thought them eternal.
Amidst the darkness and uncertainty of these
and other traditions, we fail to reach any sound
conclusions on the subject, and, therefore, feel
the advantage of viewing it in the light of re-
velation. The fact is undoubted, that writing
was known to Moses, and practised by him.
It is an opinion, rendered very probable by
what we know of the circumstances of the case,
tliat a knowledge of alphabetical characters was
Divinely communicated, in connexion with the
pn^inulgation of the law on Mount Sinai.
Previously to the period when preparation

172 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

was made for the giving of the law, we have
no notice of the use of writing. Amongst
all the references to the civilized institutions
of the patriarchs, there is no allusion to this.
It is very improbable that no reference should
ever have been made to it, had it been known
in these early times. To this must be added
the fact that, after the promulgation of the
law, reference is made in the books of Moses
to the exercise of writing, upon all occasions
on which it would be natural and reasonable
to make such allusions. All the great events
which occurred in the history of the Jews
were to be written in a book, and to be re-
hearsed in the hearing of the people, and to be
taught by them to their children. Nothing
of this sort was done by Noah, or inculcated on
him or his sons, though most remarkable
transactions had occurred in their history.
From these considerations, the inference is
most reasonable, that the art of writing was
then unknown. And this is the more pro-
bable from the fact that in the antediluvian
world, when the life of man was very pro-
tracted, there was comparatively little need for
writing of any kind, as the record of transactions
had to pass through very few hands ; and tra-
dition answered most purposes to which writing
could have been subservient in that early age.

That writing by alphabetical characters
originated with the giving of the law appears
probable from the terms in which that wonder-
ful event is described. The two tables, on
which the ten commandments were inscribed,

OF language; 1/3

•were Divinely prepared, and delivered into the
hands of Moses perfect and complete. This was
promised to him by Jehovah, who called him
up into the mount, and said, " I will give thee
tables of stone, and a law, and commandments
which I have written ; that thou mayest teach
them." Accordingly, " he gave imto Moses
two tables of testimony, tables of stone, ivritten
luith the finger of God,'^ Exod. xxiv. 12 ; xxxi.
18. From this it appears that these tablets
were written, not by the command of God,
but by his own hand. Thus it is added,
" The writing Avas the writing of God, graven
upon the tables," Exod. xxxii. 15, IG. When
the first tables were broken, though Moses
Avas directed to prepare other tablets like those
destroyed, the similitude of which he might
easily remember, the precepts were again mi-
raculously inscribed. It is not at all probable
that this miracle would have been repeated if
Moses had then known how to write. He
appears to have learned the art thus Divinely
taught him, so that after he came down from
the mount the second time, he was prepared to
write in a book all the precepts of the cere-
monial law.

It is no real objection to this account that
Moses was commanded to write the narrative
of the war with Amalek in a book ; to engrave
the names of the twelve tribes on the breast-
plate of judgment; and to inscribe on the mitre
of Aaron the memorable label, " Holiness to
the Lord;" as, from a close examination of the
context in which these things are enjoined, they
15*

174 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

appear to have been done after the writing of
the law. And, if Moses were unacquainted with
the art of writing before he ascended the
mount, his return with the mysterious and
living characters inscribed on the tablets, must
have conveyed the deepest conviction to the
multitudes of his Divine legation. With one
exception, all the Hebrew letters are found in
the decalogue. Every guttural, labial, lingual,
and denfal sound is there disclosed. This truly
Avonderful art thus appears to have been perfect
from the beginning, and, as the origin of
speech was Di\'ine, it appears worthy of the
condescension of God to reveal to his favoured
people, and through them to the world, this
method of embodying ilceting sounds and per-
ishable ideas in various clusters of cabalistic
characters, with which they have no natural
connexion.

From the Jews the art of writing passed to
the Syrians and Phoenicians, though we are
luiable to determine, Avith precise certainty,
the period of its transmission. It was not till
the days of Samuel that any considerable addi-
tions to the Jewish literature, as left by Joshua,
began to be made. This was greatly augmented
in the reign of David, and principally by the
compositions of that royal bard and prophet.
During the government of Solomon, the Hebrew
state became remarkable alike for wisdom and
splendour, and about that time, it is probable,
the knowledge of alphabetical characters was
extended from Judaea to the heathen world.
There were peculiar facilities for this in

OF LANGUAGE. 175

the commerce wliich Solomon maintained with
foreign nations. The central position of Judaea
fitted it to be the depository of knowledge,
and, by its diffusion, to become " the joy of
the whole earth." Her priests were learned
men, and some of her cities were so many
universities. Her prophets, historians, and
poets, extensively aided in advancing the civili-
sation of the world.

In the early times of which we speak, the art
of writing, and even of reading, was available
only to a favoured few. In many nations they
were confined to the sacerdotal and royal lines.
Even in our advanced period of the world's
history, these advantages are mournfully cir-
cumscribed amongst the most intelligent com-
munities. There is a melancholy proportion of
our own population now unable to read, and
a still greater number unable to write : so
slow is the career of social improvement, with
all the facilities we have for acquiring and dif-
fusing knowledge. It would, of course, be still
more tardy in ages of comparative darkness.

The most ancient remains of writing are upon
hard substances, such as wood, stones, and
metals, which Avere used for edicts and matters
of public notoriety. Writing on lead is referred
to in the book of Job. It was usually effected
with a graver, or stile of iron, on leaden plates.
Books were even made entirely of lead. Mont-
faucon purchased, at Rome, in 1G69, an ancient
volume of this description, in Egyptian gnostic
figures. The covers and leaves, six in num-
ber, the rings which held the leaves together,

176 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

the hinges, and the nails, were all of lead. It is
said that the "Works and Days" of Ilesiod
were inscribed on a leaden table. Thin plates of
lead, reduced to a very great degree of tenuity
by the mallet, Avere occasionally used for episto-
lary correspondence.* Pliny says that books
of wood were in use before the time of Homer.
In later times, tables coated with wax were
employed for writing, and they continued in use
long after more portable materials became com-
mon, because they were convenient for correct-
ing extemporary compositions. The Egyptians
made use of the reed called papyrus, their far-
famed paper.

The Persians, lonians, and other ancients,
made use of parchment — the skins of sheep and
goats suitably prepared ; and most existing an-
cient manuscripts are on such materials. The
Ivomans wrote their books principally on parch-
ment, and the monks of the dark ages were
sometimes tempted, by the dearness of skins,
to erase an old manuscript from a parchment
in order to substitute a new writing. This
may account, in part, for the scarcity of
ancient manuscripts. Masterpieces of genius
have been and may yet be found beneath the
legendary life of a saint or a martyr, or the
theological speculations of an early father. The
value of parchment compelled our ancestors
to observe a singular economy of words. In
the rolls of fines, preserved in our national
archives, each contract for sale of lands is com-
prised in a single line 1

* Tovrnley's Biblical Literature, vol. i. p. 27.

OF LANGUAGE. 177

Our present method of writing on paper is an
invent! jn of no greater antiquity than the four-
teenth century. Previously to this period, the
cost of materials and the labour of transcribing
works must have been enormous ; and, conse-
quently, the luxury of reading, and the possession
of books, must have been limited to a few per-
sons. There are many curious facts on record
which show the extreme scarcity of books during
the dark ages. In a.d. 690, the king of North-
umberland gave eight hundred acres of land for
one book, containing the history of the world.
A countess of Anjou parted with two hundred
sheep for a volume of homilies ; and a hundred
and twenty crowns of gold were given for a
single book of Livy ! In Hungary, at the begin-
ning of the thirteenth century, the rich abbey of
Pechverad could produce not more than three
glossaries, and one book of homilies, and this at
a time when a hundred and twenty horses stood
in its stalls. In a.d. 1270, a Latin Bible was
valued at £30 ; at a time when two arches of
London bridge were built for less money, and
when the wages of a labourer were only three-
halfpence a day, when of course it would have
cost such a man fifteen years of labour to buy
a Bible.

The form of ancient manuscripts is various.
The Hebrew ones are written in columns and
are unrolled, and read from the right hand to
the left. They are usually attached to a cylinder
at each end. Many other oriental manuscripts
are unrolled perpendicularly. Some of the
very fine Persian and Arabic manuscripts are
written upon a kind of thin pasteboard, and,

178 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

being joined at the back and front, fold up like
pattern cards. The use of some kind of ink
was known at an early period, for Jeremiah
speaks of writing with it, chap, xxxvi. 18.
Keeds and canes were used for writing on soft
materials. Isidore, a writer of the seventh
century, describes a pen made of a quill, as used
in his time. The invention of printing has
superseded the slow and laborious task of copy-
ing manuscripts, and tends to give permanence
to the structure of the languages in which it is
extensively employed. We recognise in the
printing-press one of the most important agents
Avhich this age of wonders is privileged to
enjoy, and may appropriately finish this chapter
by an allusion to its history.

The art of printing by metallic movable
types, now generally ascribed to John Gutten-
burg, was successfully practised in Germany,
in the year 1450. It soon passed into Bohemia,
and thence into Italy. Not many years elapsed
before it was practised in Holland, whence it
was brought to England. By the close of the
fifteenth century it had travelled to most of the
states of Europe, and was known at Constanti-
nople. In the following century it was intro-
duced to a new world in Mexico, and winged
its way even to India and Japan. In 1639, it
was introduced to the British settlements of
North America; and is now, with its improved
methods of working, overspreading the civilized
world.

OF LANGUAGE. 179

CHAPTER X.

Historical sketch of European languages— The formation of
modern languages— The English language--Its grammatical
superiority — Its verbal strength and beauty — Elements
which enter largely into its composition — History of its
progress and completion — Question of a universal lan-
guage—Prospects of the extension of the English tongue —
Comparative advantages of written and spoken language
— Conclusion.

In attempting such a sketch of the progress of
language, as may be compatible with the brief
Hmits of this essay, we shall principally fix
attention on the history of modern languages in
general, and of the English language in parti-
cular. While the language in which Aristotle
and Plato, and other men of mighty intellect,
wrote, has for two thousand years exerted a
commanding influence on the character of the
human mind, both in Europe and Asia, its
power was more directly brought to bear upon
the Roman language and literature than on
that of any other people. " The later literature
of the Romans is such as to keep us perpetually
in mind of its origin ; and few are now disposed
to question the truth of the common assertion,
that the Roman writers are in general mere
imitators of the Greeks."* There is, never-
theless, a character peculiar to the Roman
language, belonging not so much to the litera-

* F. Schlegel's Lectures, iii.

180 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

ture as to the nation. Rome is the great goint
of union between the ancient and the modern
world in language and literature, as in many
other things.

The formation of the modern languages of
Europe is intimately connected with the decline
of the Latin language. This tongue, which had
long before reached its meridian, began to be
corrupted in the fifth century, as soon as the
Goths and Lombards, who derived their origin
from Germany, had gained possession of Italy.
The Italian language gradually assumed its
present form and character, and its deviation
from the Latin was particularly marked by the
use of articles, instead of the variations of cases,
and of auxiliary verbs, instead of many changes
of tenses. As the Goths extended their con-
quests, they blended their OAvn coarse phraseo-
logy with the language of their captives, and
the rude dialects of Provence and Sicily contri-
buted many ingredients to the composition of
the Italian tongue, which, while destitute of the
strength and majesty of the Latin, inherits a
delicacy and melodious flow, which its parent
stock never possessed.* Indeed, from one end
of Europe to the other, the mixture of the
Latin with the Teutonic confounded all the
dialects, and gave rise to new ones in their
place. The barbarous nations which overthrew
the Roman empire subverted its language. The
grammars of the modern continental nations
were formed, by mutual concessions, from the
conquerors and the conquered. Each of these
* Ketts' Elements of Knowledge, vol. i.

OF LANGUAGE. 181

tongues of the south of Europe is founded upon
the Latin, but their forms are much altered.

As an ilhistration of the principle on which
other modern languages were formed, and of
the way by which they reached their present
shape, we may select as an example the French
tongue. In the fifth century, the Franks, a
people of Germany, invaded France, and con-
quered its ancient inhabitants — the Celts and
Eomans. By a mixture of the dialects of these
people the French language was formed. Five
centuries rolled away before it possessed any
portion of literature. Long after this, and
very gradually, the rude expressions and un-
couth phraseology observable in its earliest
writers yielded to more appropriate forms of
speech. In later times it has acquired a great
degree of precision, delicacy, and elegance ; and,
by many, it is esteemed as one of the most
graceful of existing tongues.

A more extended illustration may be offered
in the history of the English language. The
tribe to which it belongs is the Indo-European,
to w^hich, as a family, all pliilologers agree in
awarding superiority over either of the other
large groups. And the characteristics of our
tongue place it high amongst the spoken lan-
guages of the world. On all hands it is allowed
to be remarkable for its grammatical simplicity.
In this respect it bears a close resemblance to
the Hebrew language. In the substantives
there is but one variation of case ; and it is
only by different degrees of comparison that
changes are made in the adjectives. There is
16

182 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

only one conjugation of the verbs. Nearly all
their modifications are expressed by auxiliary
verbs, -which are of great use in describing the
different moods. The article possesses a strik-
ing peculiarity, as it is indeclinable, and com-
mon to all genders. The distinctions m the
gender of nouns are agreeable to the nature of
things, and are not applied with that caprice
■which prevails in many other languages. This
comparative simplicity of structure, it may be
imagined, would render it much easier to a
learner than some other languages, as Italian
or French, in whicli the grammatical forms are
much more complex. The testimony of expe-
rience, however, leads to another conclusion, as
we find that it presents very great difficulties
to foreigners ; and one of the principal of these
is found in its accent, which to us is not an
uncompensated evil, as it adds considerably
to its poetic powers. Great as this incon-
venience is to a stranger, it would be trifling, *
but for the greatest blemish in our tongue, its
defective orthography. This evil cannot fail
to perplex any one attempting to master the
language.

While the grammatical peculiarities of the
language give it a philosophical character, its
terms are strong and expressive. In common
with most Teutonic tongues, it is remarkable
for its energy. From the care bestowed on its
culture by writers of commanding intellect, it
is now very copious and elegant. It comes
behind none in variety, possessing as it does so
many classical synonymes for our Saxon words

OF LANGUAGE. 183

and phrases. No Englishman has reason to
complain that his ideas cannot be properly
expressed, or clothed in a suitable garb ; no
English author is under the necessity of writ-
ing in a foreign language on account of its
superiority to our own ; and no well-edu-
cated person amongst us needs to interlard
his ordinary conversation with scraps of Latin, ,
injudiciously selected ; or with French phrases, i
badly pronounced, in order to give utterance
to his sentiments.

By slow degrees, our language has arrived
at its present state. A people of Celtic origin
laid its foundation. The Celtic element in it
is, however, now very small, having no part in
its grammatical structure, while the words it
supplies are, at most, exclusively used to
denote some of the great physical objects of
land and water. The Roman conquest en-
grafted on the original stock a variety of
Latin branches, which disappeared as readily
as they sprang up, when the more enduring
conquest, effected by the Saxons, began to be
felt. Their conquerors introduced their lan-
guage into Britain, and, from the fragments of
their laws, history, and poetry, yet extant, we
know that it was capable of expressing, with
much copiousness and energy, the sentiments
of a people in the state of civilisation which
prevailed at that period, even in the more
refined parts of Europe.

Of all the languages from which the English
is derived, the Anglo-Saxon holds by far the
most important place, whether we regard the

184 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

number of its contributions, or the sort of
words with which it has furnished us. The
EngUsh language consists of about thirty-eight
thousand words : of these, about twenty-three
thousand, or nearly five-eighths, are of Anglo-
Saxon origin. Of this language, as written in
the time of Alfred, only a fifth part has become
obsolete to us.

But the importance of its contributions to
our language is seen even more in their quality
than in their quantity. Our grammar is almost
exclusively occupied with what is of Anglo-
Saxon origin. Our chief peculiarities of struc-
ture and of idiom belong to it ; while most of
the classes of words, which it is the office of
grammar to investigate, are derived from that
language. Thus our few inflexions are all
Anglo-Saxon. Our genitive, the general mode
of forming the plural of nouns, the terminations
ot adjectives in er and est^ and of adverbs in
Zy, are all from the same source. Our more
important parts of speech — such as articles and
definitives generally, adjectives, pronouns, irre-
gular verbs, and adverbs — are of Anglo-Saxon
origin.

And not only is the skeleton of our language
thus derived from the Anglo-Saxon, but a
considerable part of its body and clothing may
boast of the same origin. From this language
we derive the words which occur most frequently
in discourse. It has given names to the heavenly
bodies, as sun, moon, and stars. It has fixed the
names of three out of the four elements, namely,
earth, Jire, and ivater. Out of the four seasons of

OF LANGUAGE. 185

the year it supplies the names of three — spring^
summer^ and winter. Other words which note
divisions of time are derived from it, and
some of them are amongst the most poetical
terms we have, as day, twilight, sunrise, and
sunset. To this language we are indebted
for words which describe the component parts
of the beautiful in external scenery, and most
of the productions of the vegetable and animal
kingdoms. From this tongue we derive words
descriptive of the earliest and dearest com-
munions of life. It is the language of daily
familiar converse, and embodies nearly all our
national proverbs. Many of our invective,
satirical, and humorous phrases, are derived
from this language, which has survived the
Danish and the Norman conquests, and the
invasion of hostile forces of Greek and Latin
words, which threatened to overwhelm its in-
digenous terms.

We may congratulate ourselves that the
Saxon thus retains its ascendency in the
English tongue, as it gives to it much of its
raciness and force. The orator and the poet
can never cultivate it without advantage. The
sounds of many of its words are often a spell
which they may use with wonderlul effect.
The common people understand it more readily
than they do words of classic origin. It appeals
most powerfully to the sensibilities of our com-
mon nature, as may be seen in those Scripture
narratives or statements, the words of which
are, almost without exception, Anglo-Saxon.
The history of Joseph, the parable of the
16*

] 8G THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

prodigal son, and the plaintive declaration of the
psalmist, " My heart is smitten, and withered
like grass, so that I forget to eat my bread,"
may be cited as illustrations of its beauty and
adaptation to move the strongest and most
powerful feelings of our nature.

Our obligations to the classical elements
incorporated with our language are neither
few nor unimportant. They have not only
polished and refined its general outline, but
have made most valuable contributions to our
vocabulary. We are not only indebted to
them for the greater part of the language of
philosophy and science, but for duplicates of
many common words, which add much to the
variety of harmony and expression. To the
Latin we are especially indebted for these
advantages. It was introduced effectually by
Augustine, and was not extirpated by the
Danes from any considerable part of the
country. The Saxon churchmen were amongst
the best scholars of their day. Latin was the
language of their religion, and they set an
example which was followed till after the Re-
formation, of giving to the world their choicest
productions in this classic tongue. Greek
began to be cultivated extensively in the reign
of Henry viii. ; and this language has enriched
ours with many scientific and ecclesiastical
words, but beyond this it has not much affected
our tongue.

On the conquest of England by William the
Norman, French was introduced into his court,^
and to the halls of justice. This, however,

OF LANGUAGE. 187

never became the language of tlie people,
though it prevailed amongst the higher classes.
The intercourse between the French and
English for several centuries led to the adop-
tion of many French words, with little deviation
from their original, as also many words of
Latin derivation. The limited influence of the
French language on ours is very remarkable.
Still we should remember that we are indebted
to France, and to other countries, for an influx
of phrases descrijDtive of substantial improve-
ments, which we have received from them.
Music, sculpture, aiid painting, have borrowed
many of their terms from Italy ; several
nautical phrases were brought from Flanders
and Holland ; the French language has sup-
plied us with military and gastronomic terms ;
while mathematics and philosophy are indebted
to Greek and Latin compounds. Such are the
chief sources of the English language, which, if
variegated in its materials, is at once compact
and beautiful.

The fourteenth century may be referred to
as the time when the modern English was pro-
perly commenced. The Saxon chronicles do
not come down quite so low as this, showing
that their language was on the wane. About
the time we have named, a great change was
effected in the phraseology of the laws, and the
pleadings in court, by the abolition of French,
and the introduction of the vernacular language.
Soon after this period our earliest prose writers
began to flourish ; and now, after the lapse of
five centuries, it is gratifying to find our old

188 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

English writers so intelligible as tliey are.
With the exception of a few obsolete terms,
Wycliffe and even Chaucer may easily be read
by an English student.

From this period the language advanced in
refinement and copiousness, till the days of
Elizabeth, in which we incline to think it
assumed its most perfect form. The writers of
the next generation are found to have declined
in purity, when compared with Hooker and
Raleigh. The prose, even of Milton and Bacon,
though very excellent, is in some degree
pedantic. The received version of the Holy
Scriptures in the vernacular tongue has done
much to preserve the language from deteriora-
tion, by rendering the Bible a standard of ap-
peal, which is all but universally recognised.

The pure and beautiful style of Dry den
served to exalt and dignify the English lan-
guage. Addison's grace and ease must be
admired, even when his strength is doubted.
Dr. Johnson conferred numerous advantages on
the language, while, by his pedantic style, and
introduction of Latin words, he inflicted an
injury upon it, from which it has but recently
recovered. The present age, so prolific ot
writers, has, perhaps, furnished several who
would suffer nothing from comparison, in purity
of style, with any class of authors in any by-
gone period. Our language is not now a
fluctuating one ; yet it is in some danger of
being corrupted by the introduction of Ameri-
can words, many of which have been long
current with the illiterate, and are now working

OF LANGUAGE. 189

their way to notoriety, as tliey are occasionally
used by respectable journalists, and even in the
legislature of our country.

This language of ours stands pre-eminent,
even among the languages of the west. " It
abounds with works of imagination not inferior
to the noblest which Greece has bequeathed to
us ; with models of every species of eloquence ;
with historical compositions which, considered
as vehicles of ethical and political instruction,
have never been equalled; with just and lively
representations of human nature ; with the most
profound speculations on metaphysics, morals,
government, jurisprudence, trade ; with full
and correct information respecting every ex-
perimental science, which tends to preserve the
health, to increase the comfort, or to enlarge
the intellect of man."

It was proposed, in the seventeenth century,
to invent a philosophical language for universal
adoption, with a view to facilitate communication
amongst learned men of all nations. This project
engaged some attention, but it was soon felt to be
impracticable, and the thought was consequently
abandoned. The present age has witnessed the
efforts of a few ardent spirits to break down
the existing barriers to national intercommuni-
cation by the formation of a universal written
language. This ingenious attempt is likely to
prove a failure. ChrivStian and philanthropic men
look, however, with hope to the wider diffusion of
the English language as the ordained means,
in the hand of God, of extending the bless-
ings of civilisation and of Christianity with

190 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

unparalleled rapidity amongst the nations ot
the earth.

Never, perhaps, were the prospects of a
rapid extension of our language so hopeful as
at the present eventful period of time. The
competitors for the extension of any one lan-
guage are now greatly diminished. There is
no longer a conflict between the living and the
dead tongues. Latin and Greek have been
superseded by English, German, and French.
Sanscrit and Arabic are supplanted by oriental
vernaculars. The Spanish and Portuguese are
gradually retreating to the provinces of their
own peninsula. The German language has
acquired no permanent usage in the new world ;
and in Europe its extension is limited to
scholars and to men of science, though it is
studied to some extent by commercial nrien as
a spoken language. The Italian has never
been an imperial tongue. The only European
languages now extensively propagating them-
selves in the world are the French and the
English ; and the latter is rapidly outstretching
the former.

In politics, philosophy, and religion, England
has now the pre-eminence. The overthrow of
the French empire checked the progress of its
language, and the consolidation of the Anglo-
Saxon power on the American continent is
extending ours. In trade, dominion, and in-
ternational ascendency, France cannot cope
with Britain. The literary treasures of England
surpass those of France. The English press is
free, the French press till recently was under

OF LANGUAGE. 191

the manipulations of a censor. The colonies of
France have annually been decreasing ; the
colonial possessions of England are rapidly ex-
tending themselves over the face of the earth.

The population which is daily increasing in
the United States of America is the Anglo-
Saxon race, speaking English. In South Africa,
and in New Holland — with its cloud of islands
in the surroundinoc ocean — in the isles of the
west, and in Canada, to the arctic circle, this
language is advancing, not by the imperial
authority of princes, but by its own nature, in
the hands of the most enterprising and intelli-
gent colonists of the earth. Even in India it
is spoken by the higher classes of natives at
the seats of government, and is likely to become
the language of commerce throughout the seas
of the east. In proportion as it obtains access to
the markets and the schools of those regions, it
will conduct, in its train, that knowledge and
truth, which alone can dignify and bless the
nations of the earth.

Comparisons have frequently been instituted
between written and spoken language. While
they have much in common, there are peculiar
aclvantaa;es belonQ,in2: to each : and it would be
difficult to determine their relative value by
the application of any one general rule. We
have in an early part of this essay descanted
on the valuable characteristics of articulation in
language, and it will be in harmony with our
design to advert briefly to some of the peculiar
advantages of writing, Avhich do not belong to
speech. It is not confined, like oral language,

192 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

within the narrow circle of a listening auditory,
but conveys our thoughts to absent friends,
and propagates our sentiments to the most dis-
tant regions of the earth. By its means our
opinions and principles are more likely to be
understood than by speech. The reader can
pause, and revolve, and compare, at his leisure,
the sentences of a written communication, till
he fully comprehends its meaning, and has its
import imprinted on the tablet of memory.
And writing is more permanent in its effects
than vocal utterances. These are fugitive and
passing, and must be caught at the moment of
their birth, or be lost for ever ; but writing
embodies our sentiments for the benefit of the
existing race of readers, and hands them down
to succeeding ages. The most valuable thoughts
of the human mind, in former generations, are
thus familiar to us. The treasures of the
ancients yield themselves up at our bidding.
By means of books, their authors, though
dead, continue to speak. "Without the art of
writing, the histories of ancient times had never
reached us, and the necessary intercourse of
friendship and business must have been greatly
retarded, and in many cases wholly obstructed.
"Without it, the living oracles, which teach the
science of salvation and reveal the GoS of truth,
could not have existed. "We are most extensively
benefited by the use of alphabetical characters.

The luxury and general advantage of reading
valuable works are unquestionably great. No
entertainment is now so cheap as reading, nor
is any earthly pleasure so lasting. Nothing

OF LANGUAGE. 193

can supply the place of books, as cheering and
soothing companions in solitude or affliction.
The wealth of an hemisphere would not com-
pensate for the benefits they impart. A wise
discrimination in the selection of authors who
are read is most important, especially to the
young and inexperienced, whose characters will
be moulded, and whose destinies will be in-
fluenced, by their habits of reading. And it
may be admitted, as an unquestionable fact,
that one single book, carefully perused, and
thoroughly understood, wall be of more service
to the mind, than fifty which are hastily skim-
med over, and forgotten even sooner than they
were read. St. Paul enjoined Timothy to " give
attendance to reading." The wise love of this
employment will prove to the young a great
preservative from evil, and tb the aged and
infirm will yield the highest satisfaction. It
was Fenelon who said, " If the crowns of all the
kingdoms of Europe w^ere laid down at my feet
in exchange for my love of reading, I would
spurn them all."

No invidious comparisons need, however, be
attempted between the benefits resulting to
mankind from written or articulated language.
They each have their separate and influential
spheres of action. If speech be essential to the
very existence of society, writing is indis-
pensable to the full development of all the
blessings of a social state. The extension of
education in this country is rapidly conveying
these benefits, not only to the rich and middle
classes, but to the lower orders of the com-
17

194 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

miinity. The cottages of our land are now
richer in books and in the means of fully com-
prehending them, than were the castles of
barons, and the palaces of princes, a few cen-
turies ago. It cannot be doubted that our
heavenly Father wills the communication of
these advantages to all his children. The fact,
that the revelation of his mercy to our race
is committed to writing, impressively teaches
us that all to whom it is addressed should
at least be so instructed as to be able to read
its contents, and by these be made wise to
salvation, so as to offer to him " the sacrifice
of praise, that is, the fruit of their lips."

We have sought in this disquisition on lan-
guage, while tracing its history and unfolding its
structure and manifold benefits, to prove our
great obligation to the Creator for having con-
ferred this boon on the human race. We deem
our proofs as to the Divinity of its origin con-
clusive and unassailable. Scarcely less demon-
strative to us are the evidences adduced of the
fact, that when God condescended to give a writ-
ten revelation of himself to mankind, he graci-
ously taught them the use of alphabetical cha-
racters, that the Divine and interesting records
of his will might be handed down from one
generation to another, till " time shall be no
longer." The entire dependence of the creature
upon God and the bounty of the Most High, in
thus richly providing for the ever-growing
wants of mankind, are thus manifested. For
man, God has done everything that was re-
quisite for a being who at first had no other

OF LANGUAGE. 195

instructor. He taught him how to use his powers
of speech, conversed with liim, communicated
knowledge to his mind ; and wlien, in a subse-
quent period of his history, he needed the means
of preserving the stores of information he had
acquired by history, experience, and observation,
he taught him the wondrous art of permanently
guarding the accumulated treasures of his spe-
cies for the advantage of each succeeding age.

The conclusions to Avhich this subject has
conducted us serve to deepen our conviction of
the truth and authority of the sacred Scriptures :
and to exhibit the worthlessness and unfounded
character of those systems of speculative unbelief
•which originate in intellectual pride or moral
pravity, and which aim at changing the truth
of God into a lie. The Bible passes through
every ordeal uninjured by the searching
scrutiny to which it is exposed. The evi-
dences of its Divinity are accumulating with
the flight of time and the disclosures of centu-
ries. Every fresh research in human history
confirms its statements, so far as they are
capable of receiving confirmation from such a
source. No science arrays itself against the
Bible. Adverse testimony, drawn from partial
facts or hastily constructed theories, gives place
to confirmation on a more intelligent acquaint-
ance with the things presented. All history
and philosophy does homage to the book of
God. Our subject is thus in harmony with
the thousand voices of earth, for we are Dold to
aflfirm that no candid inquiry can be instituted
into the origin and progress of language which

196 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF LANGUAGE.

will not end in illustrating the liarmony of its
ascertained facts Avith the records of the books
written by Moses.

Allowing our conclusions to be correct, there
falls to perish, amidst the ruins of its own
absurdities, that pile of human folly which
represents man as emerging from a brutal and
brute condition, by his own unaided powers, to
a state of civilized existence, in the progress of
which transformation he invented language to
assist his advancement to the dignity of a
rational being. The theory was reared, on a
worthless foundation, by parties who attempted,
with vast labour and ingenuity, to cover its
defects by the addition of meretricious orna-
ments. It was dignified by its builders with
the title of the temple of historic truth, and
designed by them as a tower of strength, from
which to assail the outworks of Christianity,
and eventually to undermine its citadel. The
fragments that survive attest at once its design
and its complete failure. But there rises by
the- side of its mouldering ruins a structure of
fair proportions, whose base is the rock of
unchanging authority, whose type is in the
volume of infallible truth, whose perfection of
beauty reflects the Divine glory, and the en-
tablature of whose portico bears upon it the
imperishable inscription — GOD made man in his

OWN IMAGE, intelligent, HOLT, AND HAPPY J

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